


A Pint's a Pound

by stillmadaboutpetra



Series: raunchy bakery au [1]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Baz is horny and unhinged, Blow Jobs, Comedy, Enemies to Lovers, It's borderline cringe. Baz is cringe culture, M/M, Non explicit but can be read as eating disorder anxiety habits, POV Alternating, POV Simon Snow, POV Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Rivals to Lovers, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Bad at Feelings, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Gay for Simon Snow, fast burn, i probably owe GBBO a formal apology, meet ugly, raunchy, this is mostly stupid, wedding cake nightmares, you know the drill., youre a sick sick man basilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:55:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28593612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillmadaboutpetra/pseuds/stillmadaboutpetra
Summary: Watching Simon Snow bumble his way through a baking challenge is the pinnacle of my self care. I get to look at a beautiful man doing beautiful wholesome things.When he uses meringue powder in his royal icing I want to shake him. When he helps the other contestants out I want to protect him from the world because he's the only good thing in it. When he tells his tragic backstory about being a hungry orphan I want to feed him cultured butter from a silver spoon and then lick the fat off his lips. When he gets eliminated, I'm honestly not surprised.But when he opens a bakery down the block from my patisserie, I want to kill him.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: raunchy bakery au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131689
Comments: 213
Kudos: 272





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Remember yesterday when I said I have a raunchy bakery au planned?
> 
> It's a lot more mature. The E rating is there for the overall tone of the piece besides some fucking.  
> There's off colour jokes in general,. The characters r crass. Baz is...embarassing. there's lots of picking at body size (ie: simon calling baz boney.) This is mostly for laughs.

> * * *
> 
> _"A pint's a pound the whole world round." A cup of water weighs 8 ounces, a pint of milk weighs one pound and a gallon of eggs weighs 8 pounds._

**BAZ**

Drunken noodles. An entire bottle of petit shiraz. Knowledge that I don't have to wake up until six am. And sweet talking Simon Snow. The Friday night dreams are made of. I’ve peaked with my self-care. Look at me now, Dr. Wellbelove, does this look maladaptive to you?

“Come on, Snow, you beautiful idiot, don’t fuck this up.” My sweet nothings are an acquired taste. “You absolute nightmare, why did you choose white chocolate? Do you even know how to temper chocolate?” He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. “Spray it. I know it’s silicone, love, but spray it. It’s your showstopper. That’s it, lovely, good boy, well done, Snow. Into the freeze; that’s it, you Oliver Twist muppet of a man. Christ, if he cries, I hope they get a close up. I need something to get me through the weekend.”

“You’re a sick one, boyo.”

I can’t look away. The camera tastefully zooms in on Simon Snow and he’s flushed; his cinnamon freckles might honestly be cinnamon at this point; he’s wiped the back of his hand across his sweating forehead seven times already and left a streak of chocolate above his brow; there’s sugar in his curls. Channel 4 is basically encouraging cannibalism at this point. I want to lick him clean and cum on his face to start the process over again. I'm well aware of my stunning depravity. He can spit in my hole after to even things up.

“I’m not wrong for wanting to see him cry,” I argue, stabbing blindly at her with my chopsticks and nearly spilling my bottle of wine. Yes, I’m drinking from the bottle, and no I don't take criticism; our apartment has no room for judgement. Our bad attitudes take up any other spare space. “It’s very heartwarming. It gives me soothing tingles.”

“You’re a sick sick man, Basilton,” she repeats, shaking her head.

She should have heard what I said during the episode where he wore gray joggers. I’m a sick sick man indeed, but so is just about everyone on the internet, so I had plenty of company. I’ll be among friends in hell and we'll all be there for naughty thoughts about Simon Snow’s plausibly huge cock. Who the hell let Snow onto a television show in gray joggers with his bits thwapping and fwapping about like a sack of kittens someone forgot to drown? Everytime he spun in a frazzled circle, the wrecking ball of his cockhead kept going for an extra second like a drunk spinning in the room. He’d said in his interviews that week that it’d been a bit chaotic. Almost overslept to be on set on time. Joggers and a ratty tshirt and a bleeding zip up. Criminal. Obscene. A direct attack on my limited moral well-being.

Cock of Mary, and then the things he does with his tongue.

GBBO is supposed to be a time of peace and tranquility and comfort. I’m supposed to get confusing dreams about Paul Hollywood and fantasize about running into Noel at a weird bar in the east end and impulse buy another bundt pan. Not watch recoloured and slowed down gifsets of Simon Snow’s floating head interview where his face flits between eight hundred expressions in the span of a single yes or no answer - constantly scrunching his nose and puffing his cheeks and scruffing his own hair and looking around at twittering birds between statements, starting them off with “oh, yeah, uh,” like the uneducated confused nitwit he is and then - then -! - while waiting for questions or listening to directions and watching the judging, rolling his tongue out over his bottom lip, sinking his teeth into it, letting it slide cherry red and spit-slick free, and tracing the seam of his lip with the tip of his tongue over and over while he nervously mouth breathes and -

He’s a fucking _orphan_. He’s works in _construction_. They let him moan about butter. Someone filmed it, reviewed it, edited it, and okayed it; Snow, moaning, over _butter_. Deep and low and “yeah, that’s the good stuff, innit,” with a close up of a golden dollop melting off his finger into the beater of his brioche while Noel giggled at his shoulder and then they bleeped out whatever Snow said next. They should have bleeped out the moan. They should have bleeped out his whole bleeping face.

Christ. I want to be butter. That’s how low I am. He licked it off his thumb. They're not supposed to put hot people on GBBO. It’s a law somewhere, buried deep in the rules and regulations of profanity and obscenity. Just your old nannies and some random scientist and the gay cousin and your uni kid. A couple of MILFs. That’s the usual medley. Not Simon Snow. It's like they sourced him from everything I both loathe and love in men.

Course, he won't win. That's apparent. He came out strong; brilliant bread baker. Good with your standard grandma recipe. No eye for colour. No finesse. Snow doesn't have a delicate bone in his very thick body. But he can bang it together alright, huffing and puffing and bopping around like someone's let a retriever off its lead and it's happy-go-lucky tail keeps accidentally smacking ingredients into the mixing bowl in a timely fashion. If he wore a hat I'd accuse him of letting a rat pull on his hair.

Watching him pipe icing is a soft core porn nightmare and a trial upon my patience. I'm not a patient man to begin with, and no grown man should be attempting to lick buttercream off his elbow (he only uses buttercream, the simpleton) but Snow tries, and then he gets it on his nose and, as you must realize, he needs to be assassinated. I've a lovely French tapered pin that would do the trick for a bit of blunt force trauma. Except my murder fantasies always turn into me bending him over my ice cold marble rolling station and making his bottom jiggle from a different kind of blunt force trauma.

“You're a sick sick man, Basilton,” I whisper to myself from my goblin hovel of blankets and wine and noodles. My eyes burn. I'm not sure I've blinked in the last seven minutes.

“Aww, look at him then, trying so hard,” Fiona coos, reaching over to pat the bony jut of my knee. “I know you like a man who gives a little effort.”

“He always tries,” I sniffle, choking it back. Have some dignity, Basilton. I'm going to fucking cry at his stupid show stopper. I'm so proud of him. He used colours. He used molecular gastronomy. I didn't think him capable of saying as many syllables as “molecular gastronomy” without shoving a few “uhms” and “uhs” between the words.

Snow stands, hands over his face, deep breathing before jutting his chin and nodding to the judges. He offers up his humble creation. He's not good at the big brilliant bits.

A chocolate vessel that can be functionally opened and closed and must tell a visual story.

His biggest draw back is his bluntness. He can, and has, baked and built massive bread towers that didn't even wobble and had beautiful crumbs to them. He's a baker, not a patisserie. But he's done his best to tread outside of his usual brick a brac babka and brioche scapegoat adornments and really tried to step out of his comfort zone, as the judges had urged him last episode.

“So yeah, what I've done for you is, today is uh, my chocolate molding.”

Listening to him orate drives me to drink. The scarred remains of my liver are dedicated to Simon Snow.

“We hope it's chocolate,” Mary teases. Cue appropriate light laughter. “Now what's the story, Simon?”

“Know I've uh, mentioned it a bit, yeah, bout how I grew up, in care. You hear a lot of trite *bleep* like that, uh, nothing but platitudes. World is your oyster, find your pearls. But course pearls are formed from irritants in the oysters. Seemed like a *bleep* thing to say to a kid. But growing up some, getting to a better place in my life, I've come to see it's not about finding riches or anything, more like uh, you being able to make the pearls yourself. To take something that's not good and make it good. To survive a thing and make it lovely, really. Uhm. That's the story.”

He tugs in his curls and waves a hand and stares at his chocolate oyster. He clears his throat and with more eloquence, rattles off his creation that we've all seen the sketch off.

He’s used a lightly wasabi-spiced dark chocolate oyster shell mold inlaid with a purple luster dusted white chocolate interior shell. The outside is adorned with toasted black and gold sesame and a thoughtful application of sugared blue corn kernels to act as the pebbling alone the shell. He’s tightened his flavor profile and its overall appearance with squid ink caramel tuile and frothy sugar work. He's carved a functional hinge into the oyster shell from blocked bakers chocolate and dusted it into ease with confectioners sugar. It's beautiful, honestly, the chocolate vessel straight forward but with daring flavors, and his effort on the decoration the most he's done for the season. It's a show stopper for sure. Inside the oyster sits a ginger and mustard flavored genoise cake as the oyster tongue and atop that in rich bounty are his jelly champagne pearls and one black squid ink pearls.

“A black pearl’s sexy, innit?” He's so cheeky.

Paul Hollywood shakes his hand. “Well done, son,” and Snow tears up and bites his lip and nods earnestly.

“He got a handshake,” I blubber to Fiona. I think she’s taking a picture. I can’t be arsed to care. Look at him, so pure, so sweet. I love him.

He gets eliminated the next week. He's shit at meringue. Blows it the whole way through the episode and dramatically bricks it at the end. “Had a bit of a breakdown I think.” What he's attempting to call pavlova might have been found shellacking the walls of the post-arson Tuileries palace.

Meringue. I knew it. We were never meant to be. Numpty.

That? That was two years ago.

Currently: I’m preemptively bitching out my younger cousin at four in the morning except he’s not here to appreciate it. I hope he’s getting shivers in his sleep. I wish he’d end this soul-searching nonsense already.

“Dev, if this crank is jammed again, I’m going to skin you alive. I’m going to run your flesh through the laminator and make a croissant out of you and feed you to pigeons. You - absolute - inconvenience!”

The lever on my thirty quart mixer is jamming again. This is why pan spray is not marketed as industrial lubricant. I’m not whipping eggs in my meringue stand, that’s its own off-limits bowl. That’s my bowl. So help me if Dev thinks he’s going to faff about with that drum. That’s the bowl that keeps this place from falling apart. _I’m_ what keeps this place from falling apart.

That’s what I tell myself at least. Fiona knows the truth. She scraped me off the pavement like a wad of chewed gum and tied an apron around me and said “get it together, boyo, you’re a Pitch.” That’s all I am. A Pitch. That’s all that’s left of me. A name and a trust fund and meticulously cultivated spite that looks like, in better lighting, survival instinct.

I open this morning because I’ve twenty boxes of macarons to prepare for a lunchtime delivery and Fiona’s got a meeting with our only exclusive venue. Pitch Pastry isn’t a big business by any means. It was never meant to be big. It was the gift my mother gave to her little sister to keep her out of the loony bin or jail or at least to make sure Fiona crawled out of bed and put on clean pants. And now, it’s why I put on pants and crawl out of bed.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Agatha floats her beautiful self in before six to restock the display case. I’ve got ninety eggs whipping to a froth in one mixer, a double boiler of chocolate and butter working, water steaming for a bain marie, and ten mise en place sets for my assortment of today’s macarons.

They’re finicky. They’re prickly. I like them.

My phone rings. I can’t check it. I’m counting my turns.

Sift in a third. Ten. Sift in a third. Ten. Sift in a third. Fifteen. Dye. Twenty five. Pipe.

My phone rings. I’m a hunchbacked gargoyle. Who the fuck is calling me.

Strawberry, strawberry. Freeze-dried strawberries. So much better than dye. Lovely lovely pink. What a gorgeous pink. I do love pink. Bathe me in pink.

Agatha hovers into my peripheral. “Baz, your aunt’s calling.”

“Why?” I’m up to my elbows in meringue.

“To talk, I imagine, hence the calling.”

“Tell her to fuck off.”

Fuck. What was I on? It’s fine. It’s ribboning.

“She said you can fuck off into your mouth, get over yourself, and call her back,” Agatha reports passively, voice as light and delicate as the peaks of my meringue. She’s like rice paper. She’s brilliant with customers. She’s unflappable. Sometimes I think she’s dead inside. Agatha Wellbelove, as beautiful as any woman can be, and as distant as possible. If I wasn’t so gay I can’t piss straight, I’d marry her just so we could ignore each other in ordained contractual bliss. The silence we’d cultivate - divine.

Fiona knows what I’m up to this morning. It might actually be important. “I’ll call her back. Take the flourless tortes from the-”

“Top left. I know.” She moves out from my peripheral like a moth, a flitting thing. I pipe, hunched, steady, row after row. My eyes glaze over; I'm detached from reality; it’s bliss.

Four hundred and sixty macarons later, I leave them to dry, twelve sheet pans filling the speedrack neatly. I push the rack beneath the exhaust vent, throw a piece of parchment paper over the cross bar atop, and wash my hands of stickiness.

“Wellbelove,” I call towards the front; I can hear the faint sound of her conversation in the front shop. Most of our building is bakery space and even that isn’t particularly large, not after we finally caved to a second and larger cooler unit. No walk-ins here. We have neither the space nor the desire to address that amount of electricity. Or fuck, worse, the repairs. Those fans are designed to frost over with busted condensation piping. Freon. Freon. Just the thought makes me want to put a screwdriver through my temple.

I don’t like to witness people or be witnessed, but the espresso machine sits behind the display case and I have needs.

Agatha holds up a slender finger to the woman at the counter. Her only remarkable features are the cat-eye statement glasses and the ombre hair, dark brown curls transforming into a bleach-damaged seafoam by the end making me squint in chemical sympathy. Terrible. I can only imagine the damage it took to achieve that colour. Imagining the depth of penetration to my own follicles makes me wince. While my hair is currently cavorting in disguise as a banded up rats nest, I can honestly say it's a thing of dark beauty.

Agatha turns to me, serene. “Do you need something, Baz?”

What I need is her to make me espresso, but she won’t anymore. I miss the days when she respected me. When she thought I was hot and obscure. Throwing up on her shoes really did me in, never mind that I only came to know of her and hire her by the nature of her being my former therapist's daughter. I thought I learned my lesson about indulging around coworkers (or employees) at my last job but I suppose I’m doomed to repeat my mistakes. Loneliness drives a man to weakness. Or to his knees in a public toilet, crying about his ex-boyfriend and ex-career and ex-dignity.

“Espresso,” I hum and straighten up, nodding to the customer on the other side of the counter. She smiles politely, looking me over with understanding. My rolled sleeves, the apron, the everpresent manic sleep-deprived strain in my eyes, my sloppy bun of hair. It was a relief to stop trying to look presentable, to let the frayed edges of my character show through in small ways. No more dramatic breakdowns. No more falling asleep drunk in the bath, waking up in cold water, waiting for the day I finally slip under and can’t startle awake from the chill and the choke.

Espresso. Espresso. I’ve made it to seven. Espresso. Happy thoughts, Basilton. Espresso. Beans makes Bazzy boy go buzz buzz buzz. (Lamb's crawling voice: _you're vibrating love.)_ The machine makes such lovely screeching sounds. The screams of the damned. Espresso!

“This is awkward,” the woman says, parts of her conversation cut off to me by the machine. “But - opening - get one free -”

She hands Agatha a few cards. I ignore the moment, caught up with my own acidic love affair. A shave of lemon peel, a stroke of the oil around the rim. Heaven. I nod into my cup, halfway to muttering like a nutty old kitchen witch, and wave away this situation, vanishing back through the swinging door to the prep room.

The coffee is a stalling device, used to limit how indebted I feel to Fiona, to limit her lordship over me. I call her, sipping my drink, burning my tongue, roiling in my casual and daily angst. All is right and well in the world. Daily routine and all that.

“Oi,” she answers, because she’s terrible. “The fuck. I tried to call you over an hour ago.”

“Point?”

She grumbles. “Get out here.”

“Out? Been there done that. Went swimmingly.”

“Come down to Priest street, Baz. You’re gonna want to see this.”

“Where are you now?”

“Cramming my face with a really good free scone, staring at my worst nightmare and-slash-or favorite thing ever. Boyo, you’re gonna shit yourself, and I need to see it first hand. Not smell it. See it.”

“Tempting offer, Fiona.”

“Priest and King. C’mon. Bring me a pack, will ya? I’ve burned through mine after this meeting. Did you do the invoices?”

“No, I’ve been prepping that catering delivery.”

“Ah. Right. Okay, c’mon.” She rings off with an aggressive command and resounding silence. Oi, yeah, oi. Fucking commoner. I make an Americano to get me through the walk.

Spring’s cold yet, the start of the season where flowers hunker down in their green dresses and peer up from tight bulbs coquettishly, flirting with the oncoming storm of early year weddings and anniversary reprisals. Lilacs. Poor poor lilacs. I'm going to rip them up and stab them into my lavender earl gray infused cakes. Lovely things, an unbloomed bulb. Tight and silky. Gives Baz a naughty thought or two. I like to stick them into cakes and see the round pop of color slowly drown in frosting. Sick sick man, Basilton.

Priest and King isn’t more than a ten minute quick-pace walk out of Pitch Pastry, down King, through the center roundabout. Watford isn’t a sprawling town; self-contained, self-sufficient. Old money that sits in the comfortable suburban outskirts of busy bloodthirsty gray London. Still expensive, but with a sort of green openness that convinces you that no, you’re not here to die, you’re here to live, you lovely sprites. This is your cottage and this is your bed and breakfast and you’re so so very avante garde and daring and off the book for taking your trip here, now hack up the five star review, pop into your distant aunt and kiss her blood diamond ring. Simpering fucks.

Fuck. I’m foaming at the mouth for no reason. Old habits. I'm kicking up dust on my name. Focus, Baz. I light up a fag and hunch into my peacoat from better years and slink out into the bracing morning. It’s not madness. It’s cool calm resolve. This is a town, not a city. And these people know my cheekbones and curl pattern. Bloody hell.

Fiona.

She's standing a few steps from the crosswalk that splits King and Priest, directly across from the corner shop that’s been a rotating business for the last two decades. Pretty sad to know considering I’m not even into my third decade of life but the reality of the unfortunate space has been seared into my mind. It’s a busy corner, a lot of foot traffic, but something about it puts people off. I think because the entryway into whatever sad sack puts up in the spot clogs the frame; people get claustrophobic. They don’t want to linger. No one really wants to linger anyway. People are skittish. Rats under a beam of light. It’s so dead center in town that you just assume it’ll be hell. It’s a tourists passageway. In and out; onto the next. Pitch is nicely off the main, going on its 20th year of existence. It’s older than Fiona. Fiona. Fiona. Standing here smoking, white streak of hair a jet-engine’s burn off, her eyes cragged and mean and staring, her fingers and face smoking down to the filter. She's the blunt red of the end of the road. Stop. Go no farther.

“Christ. What?” I hold out the cigarettes. She steals my espresso. I've brought the whole damn cup with me. It's cold by now, settled and sooty. She downs it, then takes the cigarettes because she’s terrible.

“Look at that. Tell me what you see.” She gestures with her hand, tossing her burned out fag to the ground. She shakes out another and lights up and passes it to me and repeats the gesture. I take her offering and squint.

A new business. Yeah. We knew that in a passing way, a trivial unimportant way. It shouldn’t bother us. Sweet&Snow. A green ladder and a few neon warning cones for construction debris and some contractor banging about on and off a ladder. Christ, they’ve taken out part of the wall. The floor to awning corner window of the building has been punched through to make a second door, so now the clogging effect of the entrance/exit flows neatly into an in-and-out thorough way. That’ll be lovely. If they - _yes_ \- I can already see that they’ve flipped the jambs on the door, the hinges flip-flopped. Push and pull. That’ll clean up nicely. Well done, shop owner. Way to problem solve.

“Sweet and Snow?”

She grins like a vulture and tilts her neck back and barks laughter in great huffing plumes of smoke. “Aren’t you curious?”

“Am I supposed to be?”

“Sweet and Snow,” she repeats, cutting her eyes to me. She’s laughing, sucking on her cigarette, puffing from her nose and stamping her toes into her boots in shivering excitement. “Don’t ruin this for me, Baz. I want to watch your little face screw up in orgasmic dismay.”

I sneer. “What is wrong with you?”

She laughs. “Only as much as you, love.” She gestures at the building again. The guy on the ladder dismounts and steps backwards into the street to get a view of the shopfront. Good Christ, am I about to witness a pedestrian murder?

“Hey, mate, watch it!” I call, a surge of good Samaritan instinct kicking up in my chest. There’s cars slowing down. People preparing to curse. The guy startles and stumbles back onto the walk, turning to wave in a blur of indistinguishable gratitude at me. I look past him and into the storefront. From inside, someone else is pasting up gold lettering. I watch it like a hacker seeing the password crack in slow-motion and freeze frame.

**B A K E R Y**

“What the fuck.”

“There it is,” Fiona crows to herself. “There it is. Bakery: isn’t that lovely.”

“Bakery? Here? Haven’t they got a clue?”

“Ah, Bazzy. You’re missing the best bit. Go on, inch a bit closer.” She grins and ushers me forward, hand offering me the world. It's my oyster. Time to crack it open and pillage. I stalk across the street and draw up shoulder to shoulder with the contractor who’s been banging around and tempting hit and runs. He smells like beer, a punch of ferment hitting me. Christ. The potential lawsuit of the situation puts my teeth on edge.

“What’s all this then?” I demand, unable to keep the spit and fire from my voice.

“Er, uh, uhm, new shop. How’s it look?”

“Shit.”

“Oi!”

“Oh, not you, piss off. Door looks great. Nice and solid brick or what have you. Frame. I don't know. But there’s a shop down the street, plenty of cakes and cookies in this town already.”

“Yeah, so? Different stuff coming from here. Not so poncy and rich.”

“Pitch too rich for you, mate?” I turn, grinning like a shark. The feral delight of a morning bicker with some strange bloke dies in me.

Simon Snow blinks at me from beneath the hood of his bloody red zip-up, face scrunched in offense. “Not a fan of macarons,” he says, low and tight with threat. “Like something that costs that much to last more than a bite, yeah. Want to be able to get my teeth in it.”

He stares me down with a huff, curls shoved out over his forehead, bottom lip pink and pursed, and his eyes raking up and down my body. He's either sizing me up to fight me or fuck me, and I'm fever-dreaming.

“This isn’t happening," I rasp.

He squints at me. I suck desperately on my cigarette, my lung capacity rapidly shriveling by the moment, hoping I’ll develop an illness that causes instant death. “You’re fucking with me.”

He flushes but bullies on in a show of good faith and human decency that I don't deserve. His hands open up to hover around me like he thinks I'm about to faint. I might, but he doesn't need to know that. “You alright, mate?”

“No,” I tell him, completely earnest, and turn on my heel to sprint across the street, narrowly avoiding a car. It honks. I flip the bird. Simon bloody Snow calls “Oi!” at the whole scene. Fiona hacks on a laugh that folds her over to her hands and knees.

“What the fuck,” I repeat, breathless, heart surging up my throat.

“Look at your fucking face,” she wheezes. “Your bollocks, they in a twist? Hid up the old cave? Knocking down dust and bats?”

“Fuck off. What the-” I gesture violently across the street and dare to look. _Simon bloody Snow_ is staring at me, posture spread for a fight. Sweet Christ, I think he’s going to march across the street and sock me in the jaw.

I hope he spits on me after. Holds me down and spits on my tongue.

“Sick sick man, Basilton,” I murmur to myself, sticking my cigarette between my lips and staring him down before shoving off from the scene, Fiona pestering at my heels.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**SIMON**

No one wants to think America has a bright bulb in the basket, but they've the hidden ingredient. Or maybe it's the Germans and the good milk, Jersey cows aside. Americans don't do buttermilk quite right, not since the ‘60s: but they've the basic idea with a southern biscuit. Sometimes I think I'm Paula Dean’s long lost son or something. Penny says to have higher aspirations in life.

Either way, that's makes my scones special. Paul Hollywood didn't talk to me after the show about a bloody oyster. It was my bakes. It was Ebb in my memory. Ebb and her barely worked lumpier than a toad dough, the wet bowl of it across the wooden board, our fingers like pitchforks turning the glop.

“Just when it sticks.” Aye yeah, when you feel it coming together, start shaping. Go in early. Go in brave. It'll come together. It comes together in the end. It's all about feel.

Supposed to be more science behind it, math probably, it’s usually math, but I can feel dough. The liveliness of it. Penny says I can't keep anything in my head but soft sweet serenades about moisture. It's all about the glop, the wet, the spring and the smell of dough. I can see Ebb and the crinkle of her secret smile. “Bowl of soup?” Her jiggling a casserole dish of flour, yeast, and water and turning it in her hand. “Just watch. It's magic, love. It's magic.”

I love magic. Watching her flip that soup of goop between football commercials until it became dough. Till it bounced and jiggled. Til it wanted to all spill together. 80, 90, 100% hydration. Takes all day, that high, turn it over and over, folding until the dough structure starts sticking to itself and you’ve got cohesion. You can see it in the stretch of the dough, the bubbled cells of living things, the network of bonds.

“It wants to come together,” she told me, turn after turn, yeast so ripe we're drunk from the air.

Ebb. You miracle of a woman. Here we are. Sweet&Snow. It's happening. It's all coming together. I'm in love with the place.

Fuck that weird run in with that random guy who came to sneer at me. Skinny twat. Fit though. But skinny like he doesn't eat. Nice face. I'll snap him over my leg when I see him next. Cram a biscuit in his mouth while I'm at it. People like that they make me tetchy. They give me a bad mood. They make me cold just looking at them. He needs someone to feed him. I could put meat on his bones after a couple of meals.

Where the fuck did he come off, pissing on my shop? A town can have more than one bakery. It's good for a people, having options. Besides, this is Ebb’s town, before her accident. She loved this place. Watford. That’s a good strong name for a town.

A secret in every brick, she said. Ebb Petty. Now she was a saint. I always picture saints crying and carrying on, big weeping marble tears. She fit the bill. Didn't want nothing but a friend in the world, for a little bit of peace and quiet. She gave everything. Gave me everything, at the end. Pet my cheeks and fed me and put too much money in my Christmas cards and valentines cards with big chocolates. “That's a good boy, Simon.” Cause I fixed her floor up. Then her kitchen sink. Then her little goat house and fence and put in all these ramps and funny bits for the kids to play with, bleating goofy creatures. Cause even when she had nothing to fix, I came around to watch the game and blather and we'd go on long solemn walks that made my chest get tight before it could get light again, the wide greens of a wood or field all around us. She didn't have no one else. But then she had me. I took care of her at the end.

Us two, little lonelies in the world. Now it’s just me. Not as lonely, not like when I was so young, not with Penny or even Shepard. Ebb said she was dying of heartache. I should have been more, been enough to keep her smiling and carrying on. Maybe some wounds don't heal.

I don’t talk about Ebb. I keep her in a locket over my heart. No one can hurt her if I keep her like this. No one can bring up her Nicky and the accident and the heartache. I put it all into the locket over my heart and keep it closed. That's my grit. That's my pearl.

I've got a door to install. Not yet though. I see a familiar face bulleting towards me.

“Fwoo!” Penny blows her way into the open doors of the bakery. Still don't technically have doors yet. Door-holes. Entrance ways. “Canvassing done. Knocked on nearly every door in this town”

“You're a lifesaver. Honest, Pen.”

“Yes yes. I was promised lunch. Put away the tools and,” she waves her hand. “Provide for me.”

“Ah, yeah uh, eat up the last,” I jerk my chin towards the rummaged box of scones I'd brought with me to ply the curious onlookers. Penny descends like a vulture and takes the last of the tea from my thermos while she's at it. “Lemme put up this door first so I can lock the place.”

“Do you need help?”

I lever the door into the frame, grunting with the effort. “You offering or just pretending you'll help?”

“Pretending. You got this Simon, wooo!” She cheers, shaking her scone at me. “If only you were as capable at marketing as you are at physical labour. Don't see why you won't just make a statement about opening a bakery. I'm sure the news would do all the publicity for you.”

“I don't want someone to do publicity for me. Feels like cheating.”

Penny ignores me. “Or that producer. Davy.”

“No,” I growl. The door snugs in. “That guy gave me the creeps.”

Producers shouldn't go round talking to little people like me. He gave me the bad-touch vibe. I had fun but the way everyone had a thing to say about me freaked me the fuck out. The internet is full of perverts.

“Yeah, okay but,” we're about to have an old argument. “But you've taken out an actual loan and this is,” she spreads her hands, “kind of your big venture in life. Maybe utilize all your resources? Extort yourself a little, Simon.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

“Yes and I sound brilliant.”

I can't help but laugh. Glad to see she's still full of herself even after Micah brutally dumped her. What a douchebag.

(I try not to think about the argument they had because Penny invested a chunk of change into this with me. She's a shareholder! Or stakeholder. She has stakes in this. With me. She believes in me. Fuck, I'll make her proud. And feed her.)

“M’not extorting myself. Gonna do this the old fashioned way.”

“Like I don't know you've been bribing everyone who poked their nose in here with baked goods.”

“It's a fucking bakery. Give them a nibble now and watch em come back. Like rats.”

Penny doesn't look impressed. “Maybe don't call your future customers rats?”

“Speaking of rats!” I whirl on her with a gasp of recollection. She spits a little tea out as she startles and gives me a murderous look as she mops her sleeve across her chin. “This guy heckled me today.”

She narrows her eyes. “Someone heckled you? _You?”_

“Yeah! Bout how there's already a bakery here. That Pitch place.”

“I popped by today, think I saw the one owner. It's all very stylish. And expensive.”

“That's what I said!”

She nods. “Why was this speaking of rats? Did he accuse you of having rats? Bit early for rats.” She looks at the floor like one's going to scamper across her feet.

I blush and turn back to the hinges, buying myself a moment as I use a power drill to drive the screws into the frame. The wood creaks before it all slots together with a thwunk. “He looked like a rat. Like a sexy cartoon one though.”

“A sexy...cartoon...rat,” Penny says very slowly and _very_ judgementally.

“Yes,” I confirm, sticking to my guns. I can see his sharp face. Those eyebrows. Those cheekbones. That nose. That curling leer of a smile. He gave me the spooks and the sweats all at once. Weird tit.

“Like Rémy?”

“No~. Rémy is cute. More like that posh Tory rat from the mousey detective movie.” I risk a glance over my shoulder to see Penny on her phone, no doubt googling. She confirms my suspicions a moment later when she holds up her phone to me.

_“Professor Ratigan?!”_

I glance at the photo and nod. Yeah, spot on. She looks at her phone screen disbelievingly. Then at me. I shrug. I said what I said and I meant what I meant.

“Simon, you're supposed to think Basil is cute. Not the villain rat. He looks like he causes oil spills in the gulf.”

I shrug again. “Well. He didn't look like Professor Ratigan. He looked kind of…well he was skinny as a rail. Kind of gave me coked out Beethoven vibes. But he wasn't some wigged up white guy.”

Penny mutters under her breath.

“You’re tryna tell me you never wanted to boink a cartoon? I had some seriously formative dreams about Simba.”

“Simon! Pick human characters at least!” She positively squeals, coughing on laughter and outrage. “What is wrong with you?”

I give her my best pout. “My parents didn’t hug me enough.”

She honks. She hates when I make her honk. “S-stop,” she sputters. “You’re damaged.”

“Ah, jeeze, you big kiss up, quit flirting with me.” I wave her away, laughing myself. My voice lifts in righteous indignity as I circle back to that bloke from this morning. God, haven’t been able to get the run-in out of my mind. “Anyway. Heckled! Heckled me, Penny. I’ve been heckled.”

She's on her phone again. She holds up the screen a moment later. “Was it this guy?”

She's so freaky how she just _knows things_. Who just knows things? I swear it's because I didn't get enough omega fatty acids or eat blueberries or whatever the fuck growing up that I don't know so much stuff. Penny had vitamin gummies as a kid. I had subsidized cheese-product™ squares that didn't melt so much as catch on fire when heated.

The photo on screen is of the same man from earlier and that woman who poked her nose in with a Cheshire cat grin (I even fed her!) They're both severe looking with faintly haughty smirks as they stare stonily into the camera. He's much more put together in this picture, his hair slicked back rather than falling out of a sloppy bun. He looks proud, if exhausted. Hot as hell, if a little dangerous. He’s in a pair of black jeans positively painted onto his legs and I can just imagine the sharp jut of his hipbones in my hands if I were to hold him down.

I want to feed him. I want him to eat me. I also kind of want to punch him in his smarmy face.

“That's him. Who is he?”

“That's Basilton Pitch.”

“Oh fuck me.” I groan into my hands. Fucking figures. Oh, that is so choice. That’s my life alright. “He's a prick. He hates me already. He heckles! He's a heckler, Penny.”

He's probably plotting my demise as we speak.

“I told you to do more research about your competitors!”

“We're not,” I wave my hands around at the storefront, “competitors. I'm practically a boulangerie and their stuff is like, fancy schmancy couture biscuits and shit.”

“Well. The Pitches are old money,” she informs me like she's known all along despite the fact that she's skimming the article or whatever as we speak. “Fiona, that's the woman, is the only surviving heir of her family. That's her nephew, Tyrannus Basilton Grimm Pitch.”

“Oi. That's a mouthful. That's totally a cartoon rat name.” My gut instincts are always spot on about this stuff. “Oh, he’s the mouse! Basil. Basil. Basil's cute.”

She shakes her head long-suffering at me and continues to read. “Hmm. He used to work for some place in Paris. Blah blah blah, ‘ _Basilton_ returned to Watford to focus on family and creative control’ blah.”

“Basilton. Whatever. Why can't rich people stick to the financial district? The fuck. Whatever.”

Aren’t rich kids supposed to grow up and say words like _conglomerate_ and - I try to think of another big word - _fiberoptics_ , fuck that's weak - _synergy_? I think that was in a PowerPoint I watched about fulfilling workplace management techniques -- anyway, old money people aren't supposed to be slogging through invoices for flour and yeast. Even if he owns his own posh little patisserie. It's probably a hobby or something. A place to take dates. Whatever.

“Whatever,” she repeats, laughing at me as she stows the thermos and her satchel behind the counter. “Feed me real food. With vegetables.”

“Picky.” I open and close the door a few times before grinning with satisfaction and pop it open again, letting Penny out.

“Bloody hell, you smell like a brewery even still . How much bread did you bake this morning?” Penny's long gotten used to the fruity bite of yeast and ferment that sticks to me. Bright and early with my dough, especially if I'm on my sourdough, my scent packs a blinding punch. I sniff my armpit, ignoring Penny’s eyeroll.

“Shit. I think I'm starting to sweat starter.” I lock up the shop with my new keys and drag Penny with me forcefully across the street to ogle the storefront. “Aint she beautiful?”

“Can we not feminize your domain?”

“Aint it beautiful?” I correct, my spirit not the least bit dampened. Penny leans against me and wraps an arm around my waist.

“Well done, Simon. T-minus two weeks till grand opening.”

Fuck. That's so soon. I feel like I'm going to pop apart with nerves. The kitchen is set up, fire marshal came and cleared it. I know I've got the right kind of sealant on the floor. My equipment is in, I can run everything without tripping a breaker. Swell. Front’s still a mess. I need to paint it over, put up all the shelving, hang the baskets, switch out all the bulbs from cool to warm, it looks like a fucking hospital right now, decide if I'm offering coffee yet, ask Shepard for the passwords to my own website _again_ , snoop out a potential employee - the hiring pool here is shit. Most of the kids are too cozy to need a job and if they do they're getting proper internships. If I start hiring I need to make sure I've got accessible training materials, so I ought to stock up on binders and get all my recipes printed legibly and not collected in fucking posted-it notes - I think in the moment! - I need to run to the office store. 500 hundred sheet protectors is enough, yeah? I should get a printer and -

“Simon.” Penny squeezes a handful of love on my side the way someone would scruff a puppy.

“When's Shepard back in town?” My voice is all high and sweaty. Can voices sweat? Mine is. “Tell me it's soon. It's soon right?”

Penny sighs. “He'll be here two days before the soft. Then he'll be here through until August.”

Right. Right. He's got some book chapter to write for his research and Penny to seduce. It'll be fine. I need to eat. Eating always makes me feel better. Two weeks. That’s fine. I can do that. No sweat.

**BAZ**

Croissants are the happy middle between bread and pastry and about as near to daily fare as I’m willing to let Pitch approach. I make Dev do them. If he wants to lurk around Pitch instead of running off to do corporate infrastructure like his parents paid him to learn about, then he can make the bleeding croissants. Pesky crumbling buttery things. I’ve spent the last two weeks with my balls dipped and dusted in sugar, barely leaving the shop just so I don’t have to acknowledge what the hell is happening a handful of blocks away from me: Simon Snow and his looming opening. He’s doing a soft open today, a little pop in tootle-loo limited menu here’s my spiel thing. There was a flyer in the paper about it.

It might be hanging on my refrigerator. And I may possibly be stress mutilating the croissant that was supposed to be my lunch just thinking about the situation. If anyone asks, I'm checking it for proper lamination even if the scene more closely resembles a caged baboon ripping the hair out of a barbie doll in a fit of psychological unrest.

I catch the blunt end of Fiona returning through the front, hair misbehaving as usual and bricky lipstick smudged, a Pitch-perfect sneer twisting her mouth.

“How did the meeting go?” I ask in a smooth too-cheerful tone, trashing the croissant and wiping my hands on my apron. By the look of it, it went shit.

“If this woman doesn’t confirm us for her wedding cake by the end of the week, I’m refusing. I don’t care if she wants to pay us the deposit and the final at the same time. Two months? I’m keeping that bloody week blocked for the expectation of a three-fifty person wedding-”

“She still didn’t confirm?” I ask, cutting Fiona off and straightening up. I thought maybe the Coven lady would just be difficult and want something stupid and extravagant and I’d be out here welding new molds and bitching about storage space. “Fi.”

“I know. Trust me, I know. I told her I’d lose the business before I jammed you up short notice with spring season.” She hops up onto the register’s counter. “Hi, toots, how’s it hanging,” she greets Agatha who blinks slowly, unmoved by my aunt or her borderline harassment lawsuit greeting.

“You don’t have to talk to her,” I whisper to Agatha. “Don’t give her the satisfaction. I won’t let her fire you.”

Fiona kicks me in the thigh. She’s wearing Docs. It lacks the tender love and care I crave. Agatha doesn’t even thank me for my gentlemanly valiance in the face of such a threat. She simply tucks her perfectly straight cornsilk hair behind her dainty ear and sighs like we’re sucking the life out of her. No one appreciates the weight I pull around here. Don't they see my flaming good cheer? Here I've been putting in an effort into being peppy and to no reward.

“I want the Coven wedding. They’re a Watford family. They need to go Pitch,” Fiona continues, aggrieved.

“They can afford a bigger name than us,” I point out to her like she doesn’t already know it.

“You're a big name, Baz.”

I click my tongue and look down at my nails. I’ll file them again tonight. Maybe paint them. Black? Cheap. Pink? Cheaper. Black and pink? Oo-la-la. That’ll show Snow how open my hole is for imports and exports. I’m going to his soft open strictly for recon. This is a no-contact surveillance mission. Hopefully, mutually surveillancing. I’m fairly sure that he’s a queer man, he gives me gay-face, but you can’t tell in this day and age now that everyone’s discovered the miracle of skincare, and observations through television are suspect at best.

“Basilton.”

“What.”

Fiona stares at me, tense, quiet...too quiet. Fuck I know what she wants. She giving me the look of disappointed expectations and suppressed sighs. Nay! She does sigh! and pinches the bridge of her nose. She sounds defeated. “Make something stupid and pretty this week that I can put it on social media.”

I don't know what to do when Fiona sighs like that. I ignore it mostly.

“Oh,” Agatha finally chimes in, perking up. She's stunning when she engages. It makes you want to figure out the secret to her happiness. Maybe a caring therapist for a parent stunted her. I was neglected and I turned out just fine, got clean pants on and everything. Ah, she's talking. Focus Bazzy. No more mental asides. “That reminds me. Are you two going to Simon’s soft opening? I hope he still has scones by the time we close.”

She looks pointedly at the clock. It's been our slowest day all month. Sweet&Snow isn't even open in full swing yet and our peckish hens have flown the coop. So much for customer loyalty, the traitors.

And what's this Simon business. Simon? Since when is he _Simon?_ He's Simon to her? Is that a thing, is that allowed? He's not even Simon to me. The level of impropriety, honestly, the youths these days, she should be ashamed of herself.

I glare at her. We do not speak about Simon Snow here. Not ever since that horrible no good very bad day. Or rather, I don't. I repress the memory like any other well-adapted human being. See? I turned out just fine.

But he lurks. Snow lurks. He's lurking as we speak. He has a presence in this town and I despise him for it. I may have run away in the grocer when my superior height allowed me to see his mop of curls from overtop a tall pile of suggestively phallic bananas right next to the pile of suggestively threatening cassava root. It was practically a snuff film in the making.

Lies! lies! lies! Pitches don't run away. I merely gracefully evacuated a space that no longer suited my emotional needs. Twas terribly mundane and downright healthy of me.

“There was a write up,” Agatha continues. “I didn't even realize who he was at first. I don't watch shows like that but that's very cute of him.”

At least eleven vivid masturbatory memories I have of Snow leap into my mind to bend over and spread themselves accusingly. Yes. _Cute_. Precisely the word I would use.

(Am I just desperately horny? I'll fuck him and get this out of my system, put an end to this multi-year fixation. I'm sure he's a disappointing shag. _The mouth-breathing alone-_ )

Fiona groans and pastes herself over the curve of the display case, presenting her body to the gods to devour her liver in the daily punishment that is this topic. It'd have to be a hell of a beak on whatever sorry eagle tried to do her in. “I'll never hear the end of Simon Snow. It stopped being funny days ago. Boring.”

“Don't get prints on the glass,” I sneer. I have not been talking about him that much. Surely not.

She doesn't heed me. “Well, Basilton, what's the verdict. Are we going? Would you like me to chaperone you? I cannot guarantee I'll behave in a civilized fashion but I could make the event very fun. We'd bond. Do you want some bonding time with your auntie?”

“Out of respect for all the therapy with Wellbelove,” I tip my head towards Agatha; she acknowledges me with a prim nod, “I'm going to use a reparative no here.” I hold my hand under my chin, framing my face. I like to be clear about these things. “No.”

Fiona snorts tiredly. “I wanted to witness you socializing.”

“I don't,” I mutter. What personality do I wear? It can't clash with my outfit. I already unintentionally harassed Snow, so my options are keep up the trajectory and commit to hostility for life until one of us dies or pretend to be a decent person and subtly let him know I want his fingers in my mouth.

“Baz!” The swinging doors swing doorishly and Dev appears in the front shop with the gusto of a soda tab being popped. “Are you doing the dishes or not?”

Look at me. Dishes. I used to fire people over dishes.

“I already have the mop bucket ready, so I'll hit the floor when you're done,” Dev says, disappearing again with a belated, “hi Fi!” hurled over his back.

“My boss wants me,” I say, taking the excuse with stifled relief. “Fi, make sure Coven orders a cake and not two hundred and sixty individually iced cookies. If I have to pipe-”

“I got it, boyo. They said cake.”

Somehow, I don’t think they’re going to want cake. They never want something as simple as cake. Everyone wants to complicate things. Cakes not good enough anymore. I blame gay marriage. It put the straights all in a twist and now they want weird shit like donut selfie walls.

There’s nothing to be done but anticipate it. I’d much rather anticipate tonight and better prepare myself to talk to Simon Snow again. I need to look very hot and very homosexual; that shouldn't be too hard.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i physically had to write simon's pov because Baz embarasses me. im embarassed for him. is heckling a love language?

* * *

**SIMON**

I let the soft open stretch most of the day. I opened bright and early at six for the morning folk, a few types of bread but mostly the sour cherry scones available. I’ve spent the last few days bulk prepping until the freezer couldn’t fit anymore.

Scones, from frozen? More likely than you think, and precisely how I’m going to be able to keep in supply. Like I said, the Americans, they’re onto something with their bake-from-frozen biscuits. A quick egg wash before they pop into the oven and it’s a lovely glossy show.

Penny was a lifesaver, getting all those little cards out to so many people. Anyone who came in with their email filled out for a bi-weekly flyer got a free scone. For now, until I can hammer down what sales will be like, and until I can find myself with another steady hand in the bakery - not counting Shepard who will do about twenty hours a week with me (insisting he’ll need reasons to leave the self inflicted dungeon of his research - his words not mine)- the selection will stay small and manageable. I want to put out good steady product, not half ass just to have an assortment. It’s about the wow factor. Not abundance.

This high-school aged deaf girl Phillipa inquired about a job. I don’t know sign language beyond the alphabet, which is pretty good if you ask me. She had a notebook and we wrote on that and she said she could do the front shop bit after school and then all day when summer rolls around. I mean, if she can work a till, it should work, I'm equal opportunity and she might be better at math than me. I guess it’s probably shit hard finding a job when you’re deaf, and a teenager, not that I know. I told her let me look at the restrictions on hiring minors but sure, sounds good, do I need to get your parents permission? Feels like something I need to ask Penny about. Then I got nervous about hiring strangers, and strange teenagers at that. I was always contracted out when I did construction; if I got assigned my own team for a site project, I didn’t hire them or anything. I can lead okay but all the logistics get me sweaty.

So even though the rest of the soft went well, I was kind of panicking the whole time, waiting for myself to fuck up and for everyone to see that I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to run a business. Penny and Shepard were there most of the day, being way too good of friends. I mean, I think I owe them for life now so it might even out, but still. Every hour that passed felt like a blessing; blessed that it went well, blessed that I was one hour closer til I could lock up and crawl off to a pub to decompress.

Now finally, the curious crowds dissipate in a scattering of crumbs and the hour of nigh closes in, and all that’s left is a final sweep, locking up the cashbox, and getting the fuck out of these four walls for a few hours before I can start panicking all over again. I kick Penny and Shepard out to do just that, promising to meet up with them when I finish closing up. Shepard gives me a grateful double thumbs up and I pretend like I’m giving him some alone time to flirt for his sake and not because I need to stand in front of my big cooler with the door open, calming down the flush on my face and breathing in the smell of dough cold-proofing.

Tomorrow’s Monday. I’m closed on Monday. That’s what it says on the tin at least. Doesn’t mean I won’t be here the entire day, preparing for a full proper week of being open. My site’s up with the hours listed, along with hours posted in pretty front on the glass window of the door. Half days on Tuesday and Wednesday with full hours Thursday through Saturday and a short Sunday.

I walk through the small bakery space, dragging my hands over the huge butcher block table in the center of the room; the high windows let light leak in so it’s not a total cave but not enough for there to be too much temperature fluctuation from sunshine. The smell of baked things has overcome the early industrial smells of metals and cleaners and dust from installation. I breathe it in, lingering in the humming silence that the equipment sings before flicking off the bakery room light and stepping backwards into the front shop, not paying much attention and hitting the front shop’s lightswitch as I step out into it. I can see well enough to not trip into the counter.

The room goes dark and I hear a low, startled: “Snow?”

I scream and slap the light back on, spinning on my foot with my fists raised, ready to start swinging.

Basilton Pitch is standing awkwardly in the front shop, staring at me like I’m a madman, his black peacoat folded over his arm like he’s been here a minute waiting for me.

“Basilton Pitch,” I gasp with full sincere dramatics because I’m a fucking moron. I sound like I'm in some tacky noir movie spelling out the villain’s name like the audience hasn't known all along.

One of his eyebrows goes up, exactly like a posh cartoon villain’s would. I keep staring. His other eyebrow joins the first in hovering around the point of his widow’s peak before both come down and he opens his mouth, the tip of his tongue prodding his canine thoughtfully.

“Don’t say my full name, Snow, it makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy in the headmaster’s office.”

“That is so specific,” I continue to blurt like a fucking moron. He looks exactly like the kind of boy to wind up in the headmaster’s office of some rich private school for like, making other kids cry. Maybe making a teacher cry.

He smirks at this, tilting his head as he regards me. He looks nothing like he did the day he gave me shit. His silky black hair’s down and framing his face and his clothes are nice. Shiny black boots and those bloody painted on jeans and a weirdly adorable jumper. It’s a creamy apricot colour that's great against his skin and has big oranges printed all over. It looks stupidly soft. It makes him look soft, but one look at his face and I’m sure touching him would cut me like broken glass.

“Your door wasn’t locked, I didn’t realize you were closing,” he says after a too-long silence where I’ve just been staring at me like I’m the creeper and he isn’t the one slinking around my bakery. He’s definitely the kind of person who slinks. And stalks. There may be slithering involved. If one can slime, he might also slime.

“Are you here to heckle me again?”

His eyes narrow and he purses his lips. “I’m here for the soft.” He raises a hand and slotted between his long fingers is one of the mailing list cards Penny gave out. “But I suppose I’ve missed my chance for the famous Simon Snow’s scones.”

“M’not famous.” I march forward and go to pluck the card from him, but he lifts his hand up out of my reach. Absurdly, blood rushes to my face, and I’m stuttering, shocked by the strangely childish gesture and the deadly smirk pulling at his full lips. “H-hey, you can’t just - hey.”

“Are there scones?”

This close, I can smell him, even through the buttery flour smell of the bakery. It’s a green masculine scent, clean and subtle. I’ve got a great nose, I can tell there’s a bergamot note in his cologne. Last time he’d been all tobacco and sugar. He cleans up nicely. Except for his attitude. What a prick.

“Not if you’re here to shit on me and my shop again.” I cross my arms but don’t step back; I won’t give him the satisfaction of a retreat. He can fuck off if he thinks he’s going to come into _my_ shop on _my_ soft open and intimidate me. That’s what he’s here to do, isn’t it? Look hot, be mean. Probably imply that a grand piano will fall on me if I keep trying to do business around here. _This town ain’t big enough for the two of us._

His lids droop and I watch his tongue move inside his mouth again. I want to reach between his lips and pinch it.

“That wasn’t the first impression I’d hoped to have with you,” he murmurs, lowering his hand and offering me the little mailing list card. I don’t try to take it. Fool me once and all that. He snorts a breath out of his nose and leans forward into my space, slotting the card into the normally useless little pocket on my tshirt. The nipple pocket. It’s not good for anything but obscuring one measly nipple. And now, hosting a little card. A nipple card. I bet he wants to give me a paper cut on my nipple. (Nipple.)

“My apologies, Snow. I promise I’m more civilized than that.”

“Oh yeah?” I try to raise my own eyebrow at him, but my whole forehead scrunches up like a tit.

“Well no,” Basilton concedes, expression still half-lidded. He doesn’t need a cigarette to make my insides curl like smoke. I can’t get my gut right around him. “Not always. But that’s usually reserved for,” he twirls his fine-boned hand in the air in an absent and encompassing gesture, “more private situations.”

“P-private situations?”

A shark's-grin of teeth curves across his face.

“Oh. Uhm.” I’m proper fucking gobsacked. He’s flirting with me. Very suggestively too. Okay. That's….yup. That’s yup. My gut is doing a lot of squirmy things. Very helpful of it.

“Yeah okay uhm, well, that's - you're - You’re not my competition,” I tell him, turning away to hide my horribly blushing face. It’s fine. People hit on me all the time. They just don’t usually look like him.

“Aren’t I? How disappointing,” he coos.

“Why?” I risk a glance over my shoulder, pausing at the door to the kitchen. “You tryna be my nemesis or something?”

I shouldn’t have looked. He’s resting a hip against the counter, watching me intently. No. He’s devouring me with his gaze.

“Doesn’t that sound fun, Snow? A bit of antagonism?”

“Sounds like a pain in my arse, mate. Lock that front door.”

I finally throw him off his game. He blinks and hunches a little, a flinch of defeat. Good. “From the outside?”

“Huh? No, from inside. You want a scone don’t you?”

Now he’s really off-kilter. “Snow. Don’t turn your equipment back on.”

“I'm gonna.” I shouldn’t, but I’m a man of principle. He brought me his email, he gets a scone. Plus now that he's denying one just means I need to make sure he eats it in front of me and not skitter off to do it.

“I can eat one another time.”

“Oi. You showed up, yeah? Lock the door and get your bony arse in here. I’ll give you a tour. You want to see don’t you?” It's not exactly smooth of me but it's been a long fucking day.

He sneers but looks around the front shop, lingering on the chalkboard menu Penny wrote in her big flowing script. “This a ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ situation?”

He locks eyes on me, daring me. If only he knew I don't back down from a fight.

“That’s exactly what this is.” I leave him at that, passing through the swinging door and smacking on the kitchen lights before I can overthink what I’m doing or my racing heart. I hear him through the door. His expensive shoes clicking on the ceramic, the metal bolt of the door. I’ve got the oven cranked back to 220*, forgoing turning on a fan or vent. I don’t want to muffle the room; I have the distinct feeling that I need to keep my senses sharp and on high alert.

My skins prickles all over when Basilton passes into the kitchen a second later, eyes bright if narrow. He absolutely stalks. His long storky legs pick along as he checks the room out floor to ceiling; looking at the floor, at the stainless steel table, at the butcher block; the mixers, the speedracks, the metro rack, the stacks of pans, the three compartment sink; the chemical dispensers and the floor hose; the mop drain in the far corner in a off-section at the sink.

At my recipe notebook laying out and the prep schedules. He gets all up in my prep schedule.

“Are you going to use a program for your pars?” He bends over the table, flipping through my papers. His jumper rides up and shows me the small of his back, the curve of his spine. His skin glistens, olive and oily-soft. He must use lotion after he showers. The thought sticks out in my head.

“Are you here to spy?”

“Spying’s beneath me.”

“Looks like spying.”

Basilton waves a dismissive hand at me like I’m pestering him. What an arrogant prick. I have to restrain myself from reaching over and stroking the naked wedge of skin revealed, or worse, slapping him on the arse. It's just right there.

No wonder people always press the red button in movies.

(One smack…)

“I can feel you staring.”

“Uhm. Sorry.” Fantastic, now I'm the creep.

He straightens up, tall and proud. “My bottom is very shapely.”

I can’t help but grin. “Straight line ain’t a shape, mate.”

He actually gasps in offense and I giggle, holding up my hands in apology. “Sorry, sorry. It's lovely. Er, you're lovely. Your bottom, I mean. Lovely bottom.”

That tongue of his pokes at his tooth again. Maybe he has a cavity from all his expensive macarons. He doesn’t look like he eats any. I could hold him down with one hand. But he’s so bloody tall; a daddy long-legger. His legs could wrap all around me and then some. Or hook over my shoulders. Or I could tuck his knees all the way up to his shoulders and fold him like a deck of cards. That’s not very polite of me.

“You’re a disaster, Snow.”

I point an accusing finger at him. “You heckled me first. And you’re snooping through my things. I’m allowed to heckle back. Thems the heckle rules.”

“I’m merely attempting to ascertain if you’re going to crash and burn before the next quarter. It looks like you made these sheets in MSpaint.”

He’s not _that_ far off.

“I just do it all by look.” My inventory and prep sheets are all just there to remind me to count stuff. I feel the dough. I feel when I need more flour. I bought a bare basics stock and purchasing program but it's so tedious to use, I haven't quite gotten to it. I’ll get to it. Had more important stuff to do than the paperwork.

Basilton murmurs a disbelieving curse under his breath and flicks his hair over his shoulder, lingering with his fingers lost in the ink of it before he tsks his tongue. “I wrote the excel program we use at Pitch. All you have to do is enter accurate counts and it’ll spit out your daily and weekly pars after you build up sales trends. Same for your inventory by receiving versus sales.”

“Oh.”

He closes the folder and pokes it disdainfully. “I can email it to you, if you’d like.”

“Uh. Uh.”

He rolls his eyes. “Use your words.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

He’s not looking at me, poking around my limited collection of spices now. I’ve just got a few herbs. They’re not that interesting. “What fun would it be if you went under because you can’t figure out how much flour you need to get through the week? Not very sportsmanlike of me to leave you so disadvantaged.”

“Oi!”

“Oi,” he repeats softly, huffing in amusement. “Honestly, Snow. Just say thank you.”

“I will not. I bet if I opened an email from you, I’d get like, a virus or something. Like a trojan thing.”

I can feel him rolling his eyes. “Why would I send you a virus? If I truly wished to sabotage your business, I’d send you a miscallated program that would slowly skew your numbers and make you look like a buffoon.”

“So you’re just gonna, what, offer me help?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

His smile's less ravenous this time, almost shy. Even his criminal eyebrow looks a little contrite when it wiggles up. He doesn't even make eye contact, looking off to the side like he can't face his own reality. “Because I heckled you. And at your own insistence, we're not competitors.”

“So we're allies now, that it?”

“Allies…? That's-”

The oven beeps. I jump and curse. “Don’t touch anything,” I warn him, pointing a finger at him. “No plotting.”

“I’m not plotting.”

“Just. Stay put.”

He holds up his empty palms, amusement dancing in his face. He must think he looks so innocent in his cute fruit jumper. I didn’t think they made jumpers like that for blokes. Maybe it’s a lady jumper. It’s cropped weird. With his hands raised, it snags up just far enough for me to see his taut belly and a dark peekaboo of hair running down into his jeans. Great. Now I can think about pinning his hipbones and licking down his happy trail. That’s definitely a plot. This is direct psychological warfare and sabotage.

I tear away my gaze and march across the kitchen, having to turn my back to him to open the double-door freezer and collect a handful of scones. They thunk noisily onto a half sheet pan. I all but fling the thing into the oven and set a timer.

“Frozen?”

“Just wait. Sorry, I'm not doing an egg wash right now for you.”

“I wouldn't expect you to.” He hums and slouches against the wooden table in the center of the kitchen. Now he’s just watching me again. I don’t know what to do with that; the obvious tension in the room. Hostile. Sexual. It’s a mess. Nope. Don’t know what to do. And what do I do in times of distress, lads? I text. Specifically, I text Penny.

_Not sure ill make it to pub_

_What’s the hold up?_ Penny’s response hits me almost instantly. She must have her phone face up on the table. Oooh, Shep, my man, that’s not ideal. I bite my lip, considering my situation. What would I even say?

_Work stuff. Ill text u in a bit if its a hard no. sry ily ur the best ilyyyyy  
_

“What do I call you?” I ask, looking up from my phone and catching his eye. Christ. That photograph didn’t do him justice.

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t like your name? Basilton.”

“Ah.” He shifts a little, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, hips against the table. I don’t know how he isn’t falling over. Everything about him seems delicate but intentional. Posed. Perfect. He looked so wild that day we met. I liked it. “Basil. Baz.”

“Baz?” I laugh. “Baz is so-”

“So what?” he cuts me off. Not bitingly, exactly. More like a nip.

“Cute? But in a like-” (don't say in a cartoon way, Simon) “uhhh, in a cartoon way.” (Oh god damnit.) “Baz. Baz. Baz.” (There’s no hope for me.)

“Are you having a stroke?”

“Baz.” I say again, grinning.

He’s starring at me like I'm a madman again, brow rumpled, eyes locked and disbelieving.

“You’re a living nightmare,” he murmurs like a private admission, properly awestruck.

“I have that effect.”

That makes him laugh, head thrown back. I sort of expected it to be like _mwuahahaha_ cackle, but no, it’s this clear happy crescendo of noise, and I can see all of his teeth, and the way a proper laugh lights up his whole face and stays there like a glow, like a sunspot behind your eye, the afterimage just as violet-warm and dazzling as the first shocking brightness.

Oh, fuck, he is lovely, isn’t he? I wanted him to be evil, but no, instead he’s lovely.

I know I said I didn’t want him as a nemesis but as a sudden crush? It’s like a blow to the back of the knee. I reach out to brace myself on the table just as the loud buzzer on the oven rips through the air, making me scramble, almost fall and brain myself on the edge. Baz keeps laughing and I about grab the pan out of the oven without a towel I'm so flustered. It’s him who takes one of the linens stashed on the table and tosses it to me.

I won't even make it to opening my bakery before I explode. He was the Trojan horse all along.

“Just. Eat one, yeah, and stop laughing at me,” I grumble.

He hums, lifting a hand to his mouth like a prissy girl covering her giggles. It only highlights the crinkles around his eyes and I’m so fucking fucked I’m sloppy with it. Penny’s going to give me hell for this.

“Merciful god, Snow, I can see the amount of butter in these scones. They’re yellow.”

“It’s good butter. You can afford it. Christ. Just looking at you makes me hungry.”

“Oh?” Back with the eyebrow.

“Oi, not like that, you - just that- just eat something before I change my mind.” I jostle the pan meaningfully at him. He sighs like I’m twisting his arm about it but plucks up one of the scones, juggling it back and forth between his hands before pinching it steadily between his asbestos fingers. He turns it over, expression sharpening as he inspects it. He doesn’t bite into it. He peels it apart and fucking mutilates it.

“What the hell?”

“Habit,” he says by way of apology, looking awkward and shuffling about a little. He breaks off a tiny piece from the mangled steaming half in his hand, just a fucking spit of scone and sucks it off his thumb into his mouth, glaring at the remains in his hands the whole time. I duck my head to try to get a better look at him. His mouth tenses. He barely chews. He picks off another tiny piece of scone. It’s like watching a bird eat. But he eats it, bit by bit, glaring into his hand the whole time.

“You’re freaking me out,” I finally crack, wringing the towel in my hands.

“It’s good,” he all but whispers. “Very good.”

“Eat another,” I urge. He flicks his eyes to me, assessing, before lifting another. He doesn’t quite go all Hannibal Lecter dissection on this one, but he still breaks it into small pieces rather than biting into the scone. I’m tempted to do it for him, lift it morsel by morsel to his mouth, press a cherry into his bottom lip until the juice stains him sticky.

I think he might like that.

“Did you eat dinner?”

He pauses midchew and rubs a crumb between his thumb and forefinger. He swallows before he answers. I would have talked with my mouth full.

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

“In general or more specifically right now?”

“Uhm. Specifically right now, with me, specifically. I haven’t eaten dinner. I’ve eaten, uh,” I look at the scones on the sheet. I shouldn’t have made so many. Fuck, I’ll eat them tomorrow. Or make him take them home. That's weird innit? But I've got paper bags. “Scones. And bread. And uh, tea. And some coffee too and, uh. Yeah. I was gonna hit a pub, decompress, have a meal sitting down.”

“You must be tired,” he acknowledges carefully, suddenly suspicious. Am I reading this wrong?

I shrug. “I can sleep in tomorrow.”

“I can as well.” And nope, judging by the eye contact we’re sharing, I’m not reading this wrong. After a beat he lifts his chin and looks down his nose at me, shifting his weight a little like a bird shaking outs its plumage. He’s the perfect height for me to kiss the underside of his jaw, stupid tall bastard.

“Yeah so, uhm.”

Baz licks the pad of his thumb thoughtfully and nods. “I'm a vegetarian.”

“Oh hell, no wonder you don't look like you eat enough-”

“Rude-”

“Yeah, yeah, you shoulda seen the shit they filmed of me.” I wince, feeling even more twatty. I don’t like to bring up my fifteen minutes of fame, it makes me sound like I’m sucking my own dick. I bully on, turning off the oven and opening the doors to cool down. “Penny says I need to eat more vegetables, so, uhm, this works.”

What works? It’s dinner. It’s dinner with a bleeding heart vegetarian. It’s dinner and maybe a snog with the guy down the block who I should probably not be cozying up with. Next thing I know, he’ll be serving scones with gold foil and chocolate caviar or something hoity because I fell for his hot snooty mug.

Right now would be a good time to take my brain out of my skull and put it in the refrigerator because it’s useless to me. Evolution should have made me a sea cucumber.

Baz straightens up. “Penny?”

“Best friend,” I clarify, heating up. “Who I need to text because I’m standing her up.”

He smiles at that and turns his face away like I won’t notice that he’s well chuffed. “You can always tell her I’ve kidnapped you. I’d hate to damage your golden boy reputation.”

I snort and shake my head, scruffing at my curls for a moment. He must have looked me up and seen all that stuff people would tweet about me. “I’m really not that at all.”

“No?” Both brows quirk up in curiosity.

“No.”

_Baz pitch kidnapping me for business meeting and maybe sex. If u dont here frm me in 24hrs check the fridge for my body_

_Simon. What._

✌️🤡

🤦🏾

Woof. She’s gonna give me an earful if I live through this date. (I’m going with it being a date.)

He smokes on the walk through town without asking if I mind. I’m half-tempted to bum one from him, but I try not to smoke so much anymore unless I’m drunk. He asks polite questions about how the soft went; I ask him about hiring teenagers. He picks a place near Pitch pastry which, alright fair, and orders some fried eggplant thing compared to my fish and chips; he adds extra salt along with vinegar to his chips so I can’t even steal from his plate. At least he drinks lager like me, ordering the beer and cheersing my new shop.

We talk about work, except we are our work, aren’t we? He asks me why I don’t use social media more and “capitalize” on GBBO to build up more enthusiasm for my bakery. I try to explain to him the same way I did to Penny, about wanting to do this fair and square and not count on anyone else or fake expectations or pressure from strangers who don’t know me. He calls me an idiot.

“Small businesses usually fail. It’s all uphill. You’re a fool for not using your face and your name to maximize on what you have.”

So I dig into why he left France, owning up to having done my own preliminary snooping.

“You were the sous to their executive pastry chef. You run away from the pressure?”

He clams right the fuck up and glares like I just spat on his mother’s grave or something just for asking a question. He spends a long time wiping each of his fingers off onto his napkin; it’s uncomfortable, but like, half the shit in my life has been uncomfortable, so I wait him out and order us both another round. When I push a new beer at him meaningfully, he gives up on the stalemate and takes a breath like he means to confess. I don’t want him to, all of a sudden.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I amend. “It’s alright. We all got our shit.”

He exhales slowly, shoulders falling. We both take a long drink at that. He drains half his beer and then taps the rim of his glass to mine. It's a concession.

“The life I had there was killing me. It started to get ugly. It started to make me ugly.”

“You’re anything but ugly.”

He gives me a flat look. “Ugly on the inside, Snow.”

“Baz, mate, the amount of vinegar you just ate would scour off anything ugly tryna grow in you. Your guts could clean an oven by now.”

He laughs at that, and it’s a fucking relief. “You’re a terrible flirt.”

I take a long long drink at that, me watching him watching me over the rim of the glass. I am a terrible flirt. “It’s working, innit?” I ask, scrubbing foam off my lips. “I hope at least.”

“I’m….charmed against my will,” he confesses, tucking his hair behind his ear. It’s exactly how I feel. Charmed against my will. He may have come at me like a spitting cat that first day but all I want to do is get him to curl up in my lap and purr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the comments i really enjoy them <3 they reassure me about this raunchy stupid bakery au


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my plot note for this chapter was: Baz being a weak kneed baby and very horny and Simon like oh lol ok

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now the reason for the E rating...this chapter is just blowjobs. and oddly, for me, not that graphic.  
> I like to imagine we're all watching Baz from behind the cracks of our fingers as we cover our faces in second-hand embarrassment.  
> i sincerely appreciate the enthusiasm of your comments.
> 
> Also, I drew myself my own fanart l m a o : Baz and his cute sweater https://stillmadaboutpetra.tumblr.com/post/640164129889533952/a-weirdly-adorable-jumper-its-a-creamy-apricot

* * *

**BAZ**

I lied.

I lied to myself and I lied to you, dear voyeurs. This is no longer a no-contact recon only situation because Simon Snow has me pressed against the door to my apartment with his tongue in my mouth.

It's as fabulous as my little gay heart hoped.

By some merciful god’s grace that I don’t deserve, I managed to flirt with him tonight without immediately letting on how desperate I am for him. I’m really quite proud of myself. Better yet, he flirted back. It was a bit of a schoolyard scuffle for a while there, I admit, but even his uncouth teasing delighted me because attention is attention; if we’d gone to school together, I’d have let Simon Snow to push me against a locker and call me a slur just to feel his hands on my body. Maybe all that childhood neglect has caught up to me after all.

What can I say, I'm not perfect. But neither is he.

Snow’s not all sunshine and rainbows, to my increasing delight. He’s rough and awkward and apparently very intent on feeding me. I should probably be offended but I think it’s his default setting for how to care about people.

I think about him growing up hungry and the stupid to-go bag of (delicious) scones he forced on me and the dinner he bought me and the way he watched me methodically eat my chips. I ate them all. I never eat all my chips. But when I finally folded the greasy checked paper into a ball, he sat back with a satisfied nod, like he’d done right by me. It felt way too good to have put that contented look on his face.

I think about that now with his fingertips burning whorls into my stomach as he traces his thumb beneath my navel. I feel full for the first time I can remember, and heavy, and horny with the pressure of his touch. His calloused fingers tug and tickle my body hair until it finally makes me gasp away from the kiss, lifting my face to the cold night air for a moment’s reprieve. Snow kisses the edge of my jaw in departure before taking an unwelcomed step away from me. How dare he.

“Er, uh, sorry. I didn’t uh, when I said I’d walk you home, it wasn’t to try to-”

“Why the fuck are you apologizing,” I hiss, jerking him back into place between my legs. Idiot. Someone needs to tell him to stop wasting his mouth on talking. I crane down to kiss him, a hand at the back of his skull so my palm can rub the soft prickle of his fade and my fingers can knot into the flop of his curls. The other hand I keep well acquainted with his flexing bicep.

He's still trying to talk, mumbling into our kiss a “right, okay, kissing you,” the fucking numpty. I'll be the one to tell him the thing about not talking when I can remember how to do anything but let him kiss me.

I laugh into his mouth helplessly, and he hums into mine, a matching smile pulling his lips, the kiss gone sloppy and skewed. His hands return to my hips, beneath my jumper. The heat of him lights me up, a shiver shaking down my spine and out my toes like I’m losing the last chill of winter now that Snow’s touching me.

“I want you inside-,” I gasp.

He moans into my mouth-

“-Inside my apartment.”

He laughs at that and pulls away from the kiss - again! - to poke his nose into my neck and giggle.“You're gonna kill me like that, Baz.”

My name sounds so good in his mouth right now. I know it can sound even better. I'll make him drool me out of his lips.

“That's the plan, Snow.”

It’s a struggle to unlock the door and get inside; Snow pastes himself against my back, petting my stomach in a wholly distracting manner while my own mind races. I haven’t been with anyone since Lamb; hell, I haven’t kissed anyone since Lamb. Did I leave laundry out? How many mugs are scattered through the flat? Is he staying the night? What if he’s good in the sack? What if he’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen? What if he ruins me completely?

He spins me around when we step inside and cups my face, drawing me down into a slow melting kiss, sweeping his thumbs over my cheekbones in perfect tandem with the sweet suck of my top lip. It weakens my knees. It weakens me. I’m weak.

I’ve always been weak.

“Simon…” I sound pitiful.

He pulls back from the kiss but doesn’t cease cradling my face. His skin smells like yeast, tangy and sharp. He smells like something I want to sink my fingers into and tear apart.

“Baz?” I never turned on the lights, but I can see the concern on his face with street lamps spilling in through the window.

It sounds fake when I mutter the classic line of: “I don’t normally do this.”

Snow smiles reassuringly, giving me more space, the gentleman. “We don’t have to do anything.”

I laugh outright. “I don’t normally do this, but I want this right now.”

“This,” Snow repeats.

“This,” I confirm, separating us to turn on a lamp in the livingroom. It’s an open concept for the most part, living room to one side of the entrance, kitchen to the other. Lots of windows, an iron stove furnace off to the corner. It’s a cozy space made tolerable by my ability to decorate. Fiona traded me my old apartment for this, a horrific mistake fueled by sleep deprivation and fall wedding season a year ago. At the time, living above my place of work seemed brilliant. Now I can't seem to escape a 50 meter square radius.

He catches me there, in the light of my many mistakes, taking my hand and gathering me for another kiss, more urgent than before.

“What’s all this then?” he murmurs into a nip at the lobe of my ear, laughing a little at his own joke. I hate that I’m smiling but I am; half our kisses so far have been made crooked with smiles. (Ruining me.)

“No clue - Snow!” My ongoing flirtation cuts off with a squawk. He’s heaved me up into his arms and out of reflex I lock my legs around his thick waist, clutching him indignantly. “The fuck.”

He’s grinning like a loon, holding my weight easily. Christ, his fucking shoulders. His biceps. His whole body. The hand on my ass gives an impertinent squeeze. “Lovely bottom.”

“You're a Neanderthal,” I hiss even as I hold onto him tighter.“I'm too tall to pick up.”

“Ah, no,” he peers over our arms at the floor like a nitwit. “No, I picked you up just fine, ya perfect leggy bastard. Bedroom? Or I'll plop you on the sofa and snog you there.”

What a threat.

“Room’s down the hall.”

It's slow going with him kissing me steadily. He doesn't tremble the least and it's really unreasonable of him. I'm heavy. I'm a grown man. And Snow’s arms hold me sure and tight. Building arms, breadmaking arms. It's all very romantic and swoon worthy until we're at the far end of the hall where it's dark again and we crack into the very much closed bedroom door.

“Fuck!”

“Sorry! Shit, Baz, I'm sorry!”

“Put me down, Christ, before I get a head wound.”

Snow laughs at me between guffawing apologies. “I'm sorry. I didn't see it.”

“For fucks sake. Use your eyes.” I rub the back of my head but there's no bump. It startled me more than hurt me; hell, our teeth clicking together was the worst bit. “I'm sending you my medical bills. I thought by now in life we've dispelled the fantasy of being carried to bed.”

“Seemed like you liked it.” I can _hear_ Snow pouting at me. God. I don't want to see his expression. Worse than his potential pout is the fact that he's right, I had liked it. It can never happen again.

This is supposed to be a shag to get him out of my system. Just like the very nice unplanned date we went on should have gotten him out of my system. Watching him eat - arms on the table, plowing through his food like a lawn chipper - should have shriveled my cock up in distaste. But no, my cock remains intact and treacherously interested. He's just so….so blindly earnest. There is no slyness or deceit in him; perhaps he lacks a cunning instinct and blunders and blusters, but he pursues everything with generosity and warmth. He puts the whole of himself into every action. It's dangerous for everyone. How much he lets out, how vulnerable it is. How I'm mad drunk on him. I could light a match and watch the world implode from his intoxicating force.

Charmed against my will.

“Did I cock it all up?” Snow presses a tentative hand to the small of my back.

“Yes,” I grumble with absolutely no conviction. He hums and steps closer, sliding both hands around me, slipping beneath my jumper to spread his hot palms over my stomach. His body follows next, warm and solid. His smell blankets me. His lips rest at the nape of my neck.

“Can I fix it?”

“Yes,” I grumble in exactly the same spineless tone of voice, melting back against him. He feels good. This is awful. He feels so good.

His words press directly into the knobs of my spine, traced in a kiss and shy slip of the tongue. “You gonna send me your medical bills still?”

I hate that I'm smiling. “Depends on how well you fix it.”

“Oi. Worked in construction. I’ll do alright.”

 _I know._ God, I know. And I know he'll do alright. I'm so easy for him.

We stand like that in the center of my room making no move for the bed, frozen in a spell of mending. All he does is kiss my neck and pet me. One hand pushes up higher, the back of his knuckles brushing up my happy trail until the hair spreads across my chest and then he's dragging his fingertips along that, over my nipples, a warm mapping touch. He strokes my chest sensually over and over until my nipples peak and seek attention, as needy as I am. Then he plays with them until I arch and hiss. Roughly, sweetly, humming as if he's tethered into my sparking nerves. His other hand stays low, cupping my belly, touching the slope of my hipbones and dipping an occasional finger beneath the band of my jeans to scrape a nail above the elastic of my pants. It feels like a taunt and a promise.

It's tortuous and soothing at once. He's mostly calm behind me, focused on _fixing it,_ but he's responding to my squirming with slightly laboured breaths, long inhales and exhales that tickle the fine hair curled at the base of my skull. His lips drag dry and warm against my skin. He's getting hard. So am I. The arousal builds steadily, unstressed.

When I'm throbbing and beginning to ache for attention, he pushes his hips against my ass once meaningfully and grunts before relaxing again, settling his touch to the button of my jeans.

“Better?” he asks, hooking his chin over my shoulder and kissing my cheek. It’s sweet. He’s so sweet. I think I could stand here in his arms for the rest of the night.

“Sufficient.”

He kisses my cheek again and I turn my face to catch his lips. He hasn’t moved his hands from my button, instead flicking his thumb at the catch.

“Baz.”

“Yes?”

“How, uhm, how much more of _this_ do you want?”

That's a very good question.

I want it all. I want everything he has. God, it's just the first night. It's probably the only night. Does it have to be? I could keep him in this apartment if I stocked it with snacks. I could buy him little puzzle treat dispensers when he needs enrichment. A few packets of scented play-doh should keep him busy.

I fold my hands over his and guide his touch to the shape of my cock. He rumbles happily at the offering and cups me, presses harder against me, holds me from flying apart right then and there. Even still, my head drops back to his shoulder and he licks up the tendon of my neck.

“You tell me, Snow,” I manage, rocking into his hand. “You’re my guest here.”

He smiles into my neck. I smile up at my ceiling. I don’t know if my face is made for so much smiling.

“Want to blow you,” he says. Have I ever heard such sweet words? “Can I?”

“I don’t know, can you?” I query back, aping control and coyness when I’m ready to shove him down to his knees and go off on his face. I want to come on his face. I want him to tell me how good I taste. Drool me out of his mouth. _Please._

“Oh my god,” he complains, pushing me off of him. “You’re terrible.”

“I am,” I concede. He kisses me even though I’m terrible and backs me up against the bed before sinking down to his knees. I should really shut the fuck up and appreciate the moment, but I’m fairly sure I’m dreaming. Except in my fantasies, there’s less teasing. There’s less fluttering in that cavernous space where my heart supposedly resides. And I’m usually far less concerned about the state of his knees. Was I not just fantasizing about this very thing? “There’s a bed, Snow.”

He shrugs as he undoes the button and fly of my jeans. “Better angle like this. Easier.”

“By all means then, carry on.” I won't argue with that logic. Snow seems to know what he's on about, has his own geometrically proofed theories on cock sucking, and doesn't that just tickle my bollocks. I half suspect he'll whip a protractor out of his pocket and take measurements like it's the boys’ locker room after practice. Best let him do his work in peace and stop interrupting what might just well be a brilliant blowjob. He's certainly establishing a confident prelude by kissing my skin as he exposes it, snuffling into my pubic hair as he eases down my jeans and pants.

Have these jeans always been this tight? I'll retire them when next year when I'm thirty. Maybe.

And oh, oh, dear me, isn't he lovely licking his lips and mouth-breathing. Isn't he even more lovely when my cock bobs out to bump his cheek. _Hello darling give mummy a kiss,_ it seems to say to him. Oh Basilton, you sick sick man. Time to call your doctor again.

Snow, completely unaware that my cock has the accent of Prince William’s fifth cousin, presses into it with a hungry moan and snuggles his face down at the root like they're long lost friends coming together for a well deserved cuddle. Snow doesn't remotely have an Eton-typical upbringing to pretend such established acquaintanceship with my posh prick. (Yet.)

“You smell so fucking good down here, Baz,” he says just before licking up the length of my cock and over the tip to suck, mouth flooded with spit. He's hungry for me.

“Oh, fuck,” I moan, already fucking gone, absoutely uselessly stupid on what's happening. It's been too long. It's been well worth the wait if this is my born-again reward. Simon Snow, you beautiful nightmare.

Snow _grins_ around his outstretched tongue, my cock pillowed on it. He stares up at me cheekily as he purses his lips and gives a dainty suckle.

“Now you're just being annoying,” I huff, locking my knees so they don't shake and rattle. Thank god the beds behind me.

“Uh-huhm,” he moans, getting to work. “I see right through you,” he accuses around the slur of cock and spit garbling his words. “You like it.”  
He spares one hand to grip me and the other wanders up, stretching to stroke my skin beneath my jumper.

Oh bloody hell. I grab the hem to pull over my head but Snow stops me, pulling off my cock and tugging my wrist.

“Keep it on. It's cute.”

“It's cashmere.”

“That's why it's so soft! Couldn't figure it out.”

“You're a moron.”

He pokes his tongue at my slit in rebuke. “You'll get cold without it.”

“I swear to god if you get come on my sweater, you're getting the cleaners bill.”

“Add it to my tab, Basilton.” He pulls my hands away from my sweater and pats me on the hip like a favored showgirl. _Don't forget to smile ladies!_ “Don't worry. I won't make a mess.”

“I highly doubt that.” Although he hadn't left a scrap behind on his plate tonight. Oh shall I be as lucky as a fried filet of cod? I relent and drop my hands instead to his hair, combing his curls away from his face compulsively, soothing us both. (It's always a bit nerve wracking when you start whipping organs about and putting them into your fellow man.) His eyes close in pleasure and that same proud feeling washes through me to have put it there.

I use his hair to guide his face back for further inspection. He allows it, holding my cock to his lips, blinking up in a wash of blue and yellow cast off light. He's so much better in person, full and aglow with himself. This should be more awkward, but he's bullied through it all so fantastically, so undaunted that I can't help but relax with him. I swallow at the sight.

“I want to do unspeakable things to you, Simon Snow,” I confess.

He drops his mouth open in invitation of defilement and lets me slide in against his tongue. He's entirely too lovely. He's entirely too good at this. His mouth. I knew it. His mouth is obscene. He squeezes my ass with both hands until I'm flexing into his grip, shuddering and riding his face while he gags and moans in filthy concert; I want to see him cry. I think my heart would break to cause it. I twist tangles into his curls and tremble until my own weakness has him dropping me to the bed and yanking one of my legs over his shoulder, kissing down my thigh and my knee and down to to my toes - “your legs go on forever” - before doubling back to my cock with great heaving breaths. I urge him with my heel while he swallows and dribbles and sucks.

“I'm going to -”

“Yeah, fuck Baz, fuck baby-” pulling off to work me furiously in his hand, watching the throb of me, mouth open and tongue out, heaving great breaths and going crosseyed. Knots of pleasure tighten and wind and strangle within me. I barely have the presence of mind to lift the edge of my jumper to my lips and bite, stifling myself as I groan and spasm, shooting into his mouth and down his glugging throat. He dives in to suck the last strands of my come and my control from my cock until I fully collapse onto my bed, panting and listening to him clear his throat and smack his lips and _licking licking licking._

“Get up here,” I croak. “Get up here and get your cock out.”

Snow laughs at me and kisses the damp crease of my thighs, still not content with what he's had. I'm prickling with sensation, twitchy, and he's sucking bruises into the crevices of my body.

“That's not, uhm- oh man,” he laughs and rubs his face against my belly. “That's not a good idea.”

“Jesus Christ, what now?” I struggle my way up onto my elbows to look down at him, still kneeling, resting his cheek on the plane of my stomach and tracing patterns on my thigh hair, my cock and balls nestled somewhere in the crook of his neck like he's tamed my bits into a happy sleepy kitten.

His lips are puffy and discolored from use. He's the prettiest thing I've ever seen.

“What's wrong, love, hmm? Did you come in your knickers sucking me?” I trace the shell of his ear sweetly; would that disappoint me? I want to make him come. But the thought that he could possibly get off just on blowing me - it'd be in our mutual best interest at that point if I kept him on his knees for the rest of his life. We'd be happily symbiotic.

He quirks a smile at my goading. “Not that. Just. Remember when you asked if I was tired?”

My brain is not functional enough to recall the details of our previous conversations. In fact, it's immoral of Snow to attempt conversation with me right now. I stare blankly and he takes that as a cue to speak, although he does it slowly, with great emphasis, blatantly amused. I nod along diligently.

“If I get into a bed, I'll fall asleep. And I'll absolutely pass out if you make me come.”

“So?”

“If I fall asleep,” he says slowly, pressing his cheek into my hand. “You cannot wake me up.”

“Okay….”

He hesitates. “You're okay with that?”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

“Yes.”

He stands up and strips. I lay there and watch as he reveals freckled inch after freckled inch of his body to me. And then he tugs my jumper off me carefully and pushes me into the middle of the bed and straddles me. It's all very efficient of him. He does his best work when it's all body and movement.

“I should be… doing something about this,” I acknowledge, too busy staring at the thick cock flopped on my belly, curved up towards my ribs. “But I think I'm broken. Did you poison me, Snow?”

He kisses me into my pillow. “You're kind of useless after an orgasm, huh?”

“Shut up. It's been awhile.”

He kisses me again, sweeter this time. He kisses my fucking forehead. Who said that was allowed? Someone needs to yell at him. It won't be me though. I'm fairly sure I'm dead and dreaming. I'm getting forehead kisses. I can't yell at Snow when he's kissing my forehead.

“Lay there and look pretty. Can I come on you?” God, he lets me be lazy in bed. This is true love.

“Yes.”

He picks up my hand for me and curls it around his cock, folding our fingers together to jerk him.  
His weight crushes me. I couldn't get him off me if I tried. My thumb’s wet where it swipes at his leaking head. He's already panting. He doesn't close his eyes, just watches me watch him: his face, his cock, my hand on him.

“Like my cock, Baz?” What happened to all his adorable stuttering? Who let this happen? I need to blame someone.

“Yes.”

“Can I come on your face?”

“Yes.”

He huffs. “Are you just saying yes to anything?”

My toes curl. “No.”

“Good.” He palms my cheek with a damp sticky hand. Disgusting. I turn and catch his fingers in my mouth because I want to be disgusting with him. _Spit on me, spit_ into _me. Choke me on your fingers._ He doesn’t. He lets me go, uses his wet hand to push the hair off my face considerately. It'd been tickling my nose. “What about in your mouth?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck. You're - fuck, you're so- , I'm seriously… not gonna last.”

I stick out my tongue and he laughs again. It makes me laugh. Who the hell am I anymore? What has he done to me? I'm stone cold sober and out of my mind. He shuffles up my chest and holds himself up to my lips. I reach for him. I reach to get his cock in my mouth and I moan at the beer malt taste and the butter-slick slide. He's perfect. He's exactly as perfect as I imagined.

_"Baz."_

He grunts when he comes, a low punch of noise, so raw and masculine I whimper, desperate and aching for each pump of his come into my mouth; I lay slack, letting him spill over; he watches, glassy and bright, and smears his dribbling cock head across my lips and then back into my mouth to push it into my throat so I'm forced to swallow, swallow and gag and swallow again. Full. Heavy. Satisfied.

He kisses the filth of my mouth and licks me like a dog. Intimate and adoring. He's thrown himself into this so nakedly, so completely.

“You're a disgusting barbarian,” I tell him.

“You're so sweet, Baz,” he tells me, kissing me deeply.

With the immediate glow of my orgasm worn off and his cock no longer ensorcelling me, the layers of disgusting have begun to break through my normal haze. I pull on his hair and he grunts but doesn't stop me, letting me punish him gently until I stroke his curls with increasing affection. Only then does he release my lips from his own, having reached his own conclusion of the situation.

“Lovely,” he says, rolling over onto the bed. “M’passing out. Please don't wake me up.”

It's not even nine pm.

“Cuddle me,” I demand, refusing to be embarrassed. “And we're getting under the covers.” He flops around lethargically while I situate us to some standard of civilized.

“You only pretend to be prickly,” he slurs into the wing of my shoulder blade and slobbers a kiss on my spine. “C’mere you… mmm you…”

“Please stop talking.”

Snow wraps an arm around me and smothers me against him. “Fussy. Cute,” he scolds once before going limp and heavy like a sack of flour. I wait for him to descend into snuffled snores before I roll over in his arms to bring our faces together, to watch him until I too fall asleep, deaf to the siren wail of warning in my head.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u want more bad art from me, have the bj jumper-biting scene: https://stillmadaboutpetra.tumblr.com/post/640232348009611264/i-barely-have-the-presence-of-mind-to-lift-the
> 
> Hey so just remember...ily

* * *

**BAZ**

Snow’s already awake and dressed by the time I crack an eye open and pretend to possess coherency. It’s just after six. He’s sitting up on the edge of the bed, causing a black hole of a dip that I roll into like a little oyster in a bowl of soup. Sleepy...Sleepy Baz. I shove my face into the meaty curve of his back as Snow shoves his feet into his nonslip boots. Oh good lord, I kidnapped him right out of his bakery, didn’t I? There’s probably dough in my bed.

My mouth tastes irredeemably horrendous.

“Hey Baz, about to head out,” Snow whispers, rubbing my back through the sheet. “You can keep sleeping.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Uhm, okay? You're a piece of work in the morning,” he says, eyeballing me. He makes up his mind about my personality, my weaknesses and defenses, and rightly concludes that scraping his blunt nails over my scalp, over and over until my hair untangles gently and I'm snuggling into my pillow again is the right move to make in such circumstances. (I want cuddles, I want pets, I want blowies. I am not complex.) “Down boy.”

“Fuck you,” I croak. There’s a pube in my throat. How do I delicately extract that….I’ll wait. I can’t believe I slept like this. I’m pathetic.

“Yeah, later,” he laughs, standing up. “Thanks for letting me sleep here.”

I let him sleep with me. We cuddled all night. I kept waking up, forgetting he was there, flinching within his embrace. He'd surface from sleep, kiss me blindly, and go back under like a whale breaching for air. I'm exhausted. I don't regret it.

“Thanks for the orgasm.”

He sits back down on the edge of the mattress, jostling me. “Oi.”

I groan and stuff my face into my pillow. I can feel the phantom weight of his cock on my tongue. Probably because there’s come caught in my tonsils. I need to perform a ludicrous amount of basic hygiene but that's _so_ much work. I'd rather lay here and rot. “It’s early, Snow. You’re too...awake for me.”

“Fine,” he huffs, standing up again. “Be grumpy and asleep.”

I mumble my concurrence into the pillow and listen to his clobbering steps. When he creaks at the bedroom door I grow a pair. “Wait.”

He pauses. I peek out over the pillow to squint at him. “Come here, Snow.”

He obeys. Good boy. I roll over onto my back, groaning and stretching and making a show of it. I’m starkers and half-hard. His glances at the bulge in the sheets with a contemplative look before sitting back on the edge of the bed and staring me down. Him and the staring. He reminds me of Mordelia’s horrifying Furby.

(I had to kill the thing. I had to do it. It was too self-aware. It knew too much.)

“Lunch,” I say.

“Lunch,” he parrots.

“I’ll be awake at lunchtime.”

“O-okay?”

Christ, do I have to put the pieces together for him? Or am I imagining a final image that doesn’t even exist? “Come by then.”

He looks at my crotch again. “For...orgasms?”

Maybe cute and stupid are enough for me. My standards are abysmal. I shouldn’t be doing this. But instead of last night getting him out of my system and satiating my fixation, it’s only injected him directly into my bloodstream. “For. Lunch.”

“Lunch,” he says, one more time, nodding seriously. Finally, the single bare filament lightbulb goes off in his precious little head. “Oh! Lunch. Okay. Yeah, that’s-” he grins his thousand watt smile at me. “I’ll find someplace with vegetables.”

“Good man. Now go away.”

He kisses my forehead like that's even a thing people do and laughs when I pull the blankets over my head. I want him to stay. I want him to hold me. I want to fast forward to a make believe reality where I already have that. I want to not be so fucking soft and weak and hopeful even when I know how these things go, even when I do them to myself. I can't stop picking my own wounds.

When I open my eyes again, I find that he’s left me a glass of water on the nightstand.

It's hard to convince myself that Simon Snow is just another man who'll fuck me over.

What the fuck am I doing?

“What the fuck are you doing?” Fiona demands two weeks later.

“Well I was planning to force Wellbelove to zest orange peels for me.” I’m sure not going to waste my wrists on that today. Besides, she can be more useful between peak hours. Less studying to be a My Little Pony therapist or whatever and more zesting. I think if I can slip a channel knife into one hand and an orange in the other, she’ll get the point without me even having to talk to her. That’s the pinnacle of employee management if you ask me. Synergy. Silent leadership. A culture of communication.

“With Snow.”

“Oh, him,” I muse delicately.

 _Him_.

To my own unceasing mystification, Snow and I have been seeing each other with astounding regularity. Having the same work schedule does wonders for ….whatever this is that we're doing. He's slept over six nights now. Six. In two weeks. Granted, my flat is closer to his bakery than his own , the lucky bastard. How dare he have some sense of separation from his place of work. We have a morning routine: He rises before me without an alarm and makes tea and drops my cup at the nightstand, waking me with too much enthusiasm and just enough kisses, all ready to go out the door by the time my bag of bones body has orientated itself with consciousness. It's delightfully alarming. I thought lesbians u-hauled but here I am, breaking down barriers and uniting the community one over-eager day at a time. I’m stupid with the giddiness of a new _something_ that hits like a sugar rush all day long.

He puts a bounce in my step. Everyone can tell - _could_ tell that first day after sex; my normally glowing skin had an extra radiance to it that simply cannot be attributed to high end skincare. I bop around like a bloody parakeet in a pet store window, headbanging and twittering; I'm downright twitterpated. Fiona can't stand it. She went from applauding my sex life to grimacing when she caught my wistfully sighing into a bowl of chantilly cream.

I’m embarrassed by myself, for myself, and at myself, but at least I can’t perceive myself in three dimensions like everyone else. The prison of my own mind is a mercy some days. You lucky boy, Basilton. It’s all roses in my head.

I’m so stupid. Someone help me.

I still haven’t shown him the kitchen of Pitch. It's a game of denial. It's the only bit of denial I have left in me. If I don't show him my kitchen, I can maintain some form of integrity when this inevitably goes up in flames. Yes, his tongue has been inside all of my orifices at this point but he doesn't know how I organize my dry goods, so really, does he know me at all? I've kept my secrets. Not many though. Good lord, I'm weak for him.

Despite Fiona’s disturbing accusations that bats and a long lost mining excursion reside up the cave of my unlovable arsehole, it remains receptive to a thorough buggering. Snow’s breadmaking hands are capable of hours of work without cramping. And in turn, I can play elaborate drum solos on his astoundingly jiggly bottom. Oh Snow, how he jiggles and wobbles. He’s a delicious blancmange I wish to devour, face first and slobbering.

(We have a terrible amount of fun together. I’m as baffled as anyone.)

“I thought you swore off dating in the industry after Lamb?” Fiona never learned the art of circular rhetoric. All about the jugular with her.

“I did.”

“Man of your word, I see.”

“Is there a point to this interrogation?”

“I’m not cleaning up your next heartbreak.”

“Thank you for the love and support, Fiona, but it’s unnecessary.”

“You gave him a copy of our employee handbook and our hiring guidelines.”

“He needed reference material.” He’d blubbered about it. I couldn’t just let Simon Snow blubber or potentially violate a basic fair labour practice law and wind up sued for all he’s worth. It’d be a crime against the nation. It’d be an insult to baked goods everywhere. It'd break him and I can't have that. He's so nervous about messing up, it gives me hives.

“Basilton.”

“Don't you have more important things to manage, like our client list? I believe deadlines have passed and now we’ve passed the line between being silly nincompoops and into looking like desperate daft fools.”

The Coven wedding. If my mother was alive, this wouldn't be an issue. If my mother was alive, neither of us would be faffing about still in Watford, congratulating ourselves for clean pants and minimal drug use. But that's the life we lead. It's beside the point. What point? I don't know anymore.

Distracting Fiona. That’s my point. Making my great escape. I’ll ramble off prep items to her and she’ll pretend to nod off and the moment her eyes closed, poof, I’ll vanish. I've got sable to roll and apricot cheesecake to make. Vegan chocolate avocado mousse trifle for a specialty order and a sample of puréed ube from a new potential vendor to experiment with; I'm thinking a soufflé. Or maybe a couple of pot de crèmes.

Plus, today is the day to restock the cardamom and rosé truffles, and honestly, I only trust Dev to finish them, loathe as I am to appreciate his presence in Pitch; I’ve made all the separate ingredients but I can’t be around them unsupervised. I eat them. They’re just so small and cute and they’re my favorite. They were mother’s favorite - conceptually. Anything with cardamon. Thick hot cardamom coffees and poppyseed cakes at breakfast, cardamon and kava tea at night with heaps of honey.

Dev never met my mother, but he knows not to fuck them up. When the batch has been stored away, he brings me a cup of espresso and one truffle on a little doily napkin, cocoa dusted and velvet dark. I make it last as many bites as possible until I’m licking my fingers.

“Bridezilla dodged me again,” Fiona grits out.

“Then we don't take it, simple as that, the deadlines passed. Whoever else we have pending, take them. I'm officially booked. We can pretend I’m booked. Maybe she’ll beg and we can tell her no and then double the price.”

Fiona throws up her hands. “Yes your highness. Whatever you want.”

“Finally adopting my worldview, I see.”

She throws a macaron at me and before I can snap at her, she logs it on the waste sheet. Perhaps there is hope for humanity.

And then Simon Snow stands me up.

He was supposed to text me when he closed up; despite us hosting essentially the same business hours, he always leaves his shop well after me, even though his friend-slash-temporary roommate, Shepard, a very very American American, handles his front work for the most part. Snow’s opened, and the first week was hellish clamouring; I dared not step foot inside for fear of being trampled. And now the second week has been all the well-hooked devoted patrons or the previous hesitant poking their noses in. It’s good. He’s handled it. He looks like shit, but he’s handling it. You have to baptize by fire with these things. Third week should be cake. Or brioche. Whatever idiom works best.

None of that matters now. He’s stood me up. There were vague promises of falafel. (He's progressed past thinking all I do is eat spinach leaves. Numpty.) It’s almost ten oclock, and I can’t possibly do another face mask to procrastinate. My cells have hit the maximum threshold of vitamin C. The wine I would have deigned to share with him is swimming through my bloodstream. And my phone is dry.

Bleak. It’s bleak. I hate him.

Not a text all day. Pathetic. I’m so pathetic. I sent one (1) singular (one!) text to him this afternoon to no reply. No more. I won’t stoop to reminding him of a date. I won’t be needy. I’m not even desirous of company. I’ve got a Misfit marathon to keep me busy (still the early seasons, thank you very much.) Fuck, I should wank to a GBBO re-run just to be petty. No...no, I talk myself down. Let’s not be ridiculous.

I should wank to Paul Hollywood. He has far more arresting blue eyes than Snow. That’ll show him. I’ve a few elaborate stock fantasies to draw up; Snow forced to bake something rigorous and time consuming while I and my companion of choice fuck in a pile of frosting on the judge’s table while Snow cries into his salted caramel, consumed with lust and envy. Sometimes, he does such a good job that he gets to lick me clean. Other times, he just keeps crying.

I wonder if we watched a sad movie if he would cry. I don’t want to make him cry but if I could adjacently _witness_ him crying, that’s not so bad, is it? That’s not sadistic or perverted, is it?....  
.  
.  
.  
I get as far as a hand down my pants before I give up on the thought. I can’t diddle to thoughts of him when he’s not here. It’s weird now. Damn him, he’s made it weird. He ruins everything.

By now I am well-acquainted with my sofa, beginning to fuse with the cushions, half-heartedly watching the telly between writing down flavor ideas for ice cream to introduce for summer. Earl gray, of course. Orange creme. Lemon and goat cheese. Vanilla luxardo cherry. Balsamic strawberry. Should it be a vanilla base, or a strawberry base with a balsamic reduction hand mixed in after? We do this every year. Limited small batch pints with hand-drawn designs; we have art students submit for it (and receive monetary compensation.)

My phone goes off like an air raid siren.

_Omg please dont hate me_   
_I literally fell asleep at the bakery_   
_Im home now_   
_Baz im ajsdba_   
_alasdalj_   
_Sorry 🥺🥺🥺_   
_Im fucking knackered_   
_R u awake_

_Hello Snow. I was planning to sleep soon._

That’s a lie, but I can make it true. I can convince myself to be very tired right about now. Is that a yawn coming on? Dear me.

_Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_   
_I have babka??_

Curse him.

_Well if you have babka then by all means._

The wine bottle goes into the recycle bin. I light a candle in the bedroom and bring my toothbrush into the shower, hair piled atop my head like a beehive to avoid the worst of the spray which I direct pointedly at hip level. I basically floss my asshole with a babywipe before dunking myself into a vat of body oil and then slip and slide my way into my favorite [jammies](https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/shopping/homebody-x-liberty-t-shirt-16174617). (Cotton, breathable, understated.)

I have matching jammies and I won’t be shamed for them. Snow cycles through two pairs of trackie bottoms and three tshirts for sleep (and often daywear, with a spicy mix of worn-soft jeans thrown in.) I think I’ve seen every algorithmic compilation of his clothes in the course of eighteen days. Materialism never felt more valid to me than when being faced with the death of pretension that he embodies.

Feeling properly nympho girls-next-door in an art-house film ravishable, I find a second bottle of wine and pour myself a fresh glass. It’s the machinations of a sad man. Sad sad man, Basilton.

Snow knocks. I open.

“So nice of you to join me,” I - tsk? Purr? State with reserved glee? Who knows. He’s in trackies and a tshirt, the collar of it dark from his shower-wet curls. He looks like hell. Oh dear, we can't have that. I reach for his stupid face and he’s hot to the touch. “Do you have a fever or did you run here?”

“Maybe?”

“To which question.”

He blows a breath up his face to try to dislodge a curl that’s dripping into his eye. I tuck it into the mess of hair on his head and he smiles weakly. “Ran.”

“You’re ridiculous.” How he doesn’t embarrass himself to death on a daily basis, I’ll never know. I should ask him for pointers.

He sighs and slumps against the doorframe, a brown bag crinkling in his arms. I entertain snatching the babka from him and closing the door in his face as punishment before dismissing the idea entirely; he’s pathetic, toeing at the invisible threshold of my apartment like a guilty child. It’s always my apartment. I’m not keen to fool around with his roommate home and more often than not, Penelope Bunce in the premises as well. I had dinner with all three of them last week (an accident I don’t wish to repeat but am sure I will) and it descended into a political argument between her and I. How tasteless. Snow looked thoroughly uncomfortable and Shepard stereotypically confused by the lack of Americanah being spoon-fed to him. The man’s pursuing a doctorate for heaven’s sake.

(What the hell is folklore anthropology anyway.)

“I totally crashed,” he confesses, as if I can’t tell just looking at him. He rubs his face and groans. “This lady came by with all this _request_ and it’s like - okay! Wow! Cool! But uh! You know? That’s so much- and I wasn’t sure if I _should_ or _can_ and - _you_ and - I mean I wouldn’t wanna fuck it up- and I’m like fucking around with challah this week cause I didn’t realize more than two Jewish people lived in this town and also apparently everyone loves challah-”

“Fiona and I hardly count but yes, challah is objectively good-”

“Right yeah, I know you guys but like, there's a _market_ and - and now I’m-”

“Simon.”

He quiets and looks up at me, chewing on his bottom lip and puffing like a sad little dragon. He doesn’t even have the energy to rock onto his toes when I lean in to kiss him.

“Come inside and sit down.”

He obeys. Good boy. He plunks onto the corner of the sofa and sprawls like unset jello, pooling all over the cushions, legs a hazard as they plunge beneath the coffee table. I push a glass of wine into his hand and snuggle into his ample chest. He sighs and takes a sip, his wobbly gelatinous form oozing a little more.

“Why didn’t you just go straight to bed you silly fool?”

As flattered and happy as I am that he’s here, I can’t help but worry. My life has rhythm. I’m conditioned to my hours, to distractions, to the lifestyle. Running Pitch with Fiona is practically a vacation after years of 70 hour weeks and no holidays. I also have far more security at my back than Simon Snow, who really has nothing but loans and promises to keep. I’ve chosen to do what I’m doing because it’s easier to do than what I have done; what I’ve failed at or run away from or simply spurned by the luxury of born power. He’s clawed his way into this life, hard as it is, to do it with pride and honest effort. He has a lot to lose.

Besides, if I jump his bones only for him to fall asleep on me, I'll never recover from the shame of it all.

He takes a long swallow, heaving a breath. So much heaving with him. His whole body makes a show of each breath. It's entirely unnecessary. “You. Uhm. You. I told you we’d have a night.”

“Yes, and falling asleep at your place of work should perhaps indicate that _you_ need a night to yourself.” I'm picturing him sprawled out in front of the ovens, pillowing his sweet head on a loaf of bread.

“Yeah but-”

“You know, dating is hard enough as an adult without being one that owns business that requires your full commitment.” Apparently in a fit of comfort and wisdom, I’ve put words to this. Yes, we’re dating. It’s decided. I dare him to argue with me.

He groans. “Yeah but-”

I shush him, fueled by my first bottle of wine. I can do this. I can be reasonable. Someone needs to be reasonable. What the hell am I doing? I’m being a Pitch. “You need to prioritize your business. It’s new. It’s going to take a lot out of you.”

“Right but-”

“There’s not time for everything all at once.”

“But I want everything all at once,” he argues, finally cutting in. He wraps an arm around my waist and sits up a little so he can rest his head on my shoulder. “I didn’t choose this only to have to deny myself the other things in life.”

“Everything costs a sacrifice.”

“That’s bollocks.”

“Maybe you’d agree with me if you had the wherewithal to think straight. You’re doing too much right now, Snow.”

The _too much_ is me. Having someone with whom you can release tension or commiserate is one with, but he and I are treading dangerously close to something else. I know it. He knows it. Whether or not we do anything more than dance around our infatuation remains to be seen.

“Yeah but it’s shitty to choose work over, you know, other stuff.”

“Trust me when I say what I’m about to say considering that I worked proper industry life where I answered to my masters and overlords and didn’t see the light of day: you have to figure out how to choose yourself. What matters most to you, what will make you happy and proud and content. While I can understand that you're obsessed with me, I did promise I wouldn't sabotage you.”

He and I already burned through our twenties grinding. It would be a waste for him to start his thirties by fucking it all away. I'm recovering from that, from burning the candle at both ends, from getting stuck between a rock and a hard place. From taking on more than I could handle until it drove me over the edge and into dangerous hands and habits. _Get it together, boyo, you’re a Pitch._ Simon Snow is not a Pitch.

“I worked so hard for this,” he mutters into my neck, miserable, staring blankly at the telly. “People believe in me.”

“They should.” Everyone should. They all saw him shine. “You're worth believing in.”

“But I like you,” he confesses into the ghost-light of the screen. "I don't want to mess everything up." Simon Snow isn’t a Pitch, but he’s still brave. And stupid. And so lovely. He lifts his head from my shoulder. “Baz.”

I stare into my wine because it’s easier than facing him. “Yes, Snow?”

“I want to be able to choose you too.”

I put down my wine glass and take his away and crawl into his lap.

“Choose yourself first.” I don’t want to be terrible. I don’t want to be a monster who eats him alive. I want him, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I’m not sure if I know how to want in any way that doesn’t burn. There’s living in a world where I can put my hands all over Snow’s body and do naughty things with him, and then there’s a world where it means something and once it means something, it means it will hurt.

“That’s-” He sticks out his chin and thins his mouth into a frown.

“You need to sleep.”

He groans and tosses his head back against the cushion. “Why aren’t you enabling my bad behavior?”

“Because I want to see you survive your first year as a small business owner without developing ulcers. Have a glass of wine, get yourself a nibble, and then we’re going to bed.”

“Wine causes ulcers,” he protests for the sake of being contrary. Simon Snow doesn’t know when to let go of a fight.

“Only if you’re weak. Don’t let the wine know you’re weak, and it can never hurt you.” I press my finger to his lips and he shakes his head, finally smiling, thank god. I was beginning to worry he’d completely shattered. “I was promised babka.”

He kisses my fingertips and nods, sitting up and holding me in his lap, some life returning to his face. Excellent. It’s always easy to distract him with the prospect of eating or feeding me. We tear into the babka and I don’t even get that mad at the crumbs on my jammies. I can’t be arsed to care about crumbs when Snow insists on feeding me every other bite (chocolate AND poppyseed. It's practically kolachki). I should upgrade him to bunches of grapes. I bet he’d sit beside me while I take a bath. What a doll. I give it until he finishes his wine and loses his earlier adrenaline from running here like an idiot to shove him into the bathroom to brush his teeth and then into my bed.

“Wrap your spidermonkey limbs around me,” he whines, laying in the middle of the bed and making grabby hands.

“You’re really not as charming as you think you are.” I let myself edge too close so that he can tug me over him. It's all about pretending to resist.

“Yeah but you like me,” he pouts.

I kiss his pout and hum. “If it helps you sleep at night.”

Evidently, it does. He’s out almost the second I spoon up behind him and throw arm and leg over him and get him tucked beneath my chin. He came over just to cuddle and sleep. Disgusting. It’s too much. He is too much. I’m already too far gone too fast. Why the hell did Fiona let me do this? He likes me. He wants to choose me. This can't end well.

It doesn't.

Is anyone surprised?

Am I?

“Baz.” Wellbelove strokes a hunk of hair over her shoulder, greeting me awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen. I hum an acknowledgement, settling ramekin after ramekin of ginger rhubarb creme brulee into a bain marie. This is because _of_ and _for_ Wellbelove after she insisted that giving her a torch would make her happy, and I like to keep my employees happy. Fifteen pounds to indulge Wellbelove’s slumbering pyromancy with a butane torch and not ever have to come out to brûlée orders? Such an easy choice.

“Fiona says to answer your phone.”

I hate touching my phone at work. It’s unhygienic and I’m frequently sticky. I lift an eyebrow at Wellbelove; she’s frowning. She lingers in the kitchen, waiting for me to bend to the demands of my aunt. I make a point to slide the pan into the oven first and clean up the table before fishing the thing out of my pocket. Two missed calls. Can’t be that bad. I ring her, shooing Wellbelove away. She looks like she already knows the content of the conversation I’m about to have judging by her backwards glance at me. I don’t like when Wellbelove knows more than me.

“About time,” Fiona greets me. “Quick question-”

“This couldn’t be a text?”

“No. When did you last talk to your labradoodle fucktoy?”

“My what?”

“Snow.”

A spasm of worry straightens my spine. “This morning. Why?”

She chuckles but sounds sorry about it. “So he didn’t tell you he snatched up the Coven wedding?”

“What?”

“As of three days ago. I ran into Miss Coven herself getting coffee and cornered her and she _regretfully informed_ me that Snow simply had more _flair_ and _better suited_ her tastes. Oh, and she thought her fiance called to give us the news. Cowards.”

“ _Flair_? Snow wouldn’t know flair if it slapped him in the face,” I snarl. A wedding cake is a showstopper, goddamnit, and he does not show stop. “What taste? She has no taste. She doesn’t even have her fucking dessert pinned down for a three-fifty less than a month away.” She doesn't deserve cake anymore. She can go to Aldi's and buy a day old premade.

“He’s a moron for taking it,” Fiona continues on.

“He didn’t tell me.” I would have told him he’s a moron for taking it. He’s going to fucking die trying to do this. He doesn’t know how to do this. He didn’t tell me. Was that what had him in such a fit the other night? He didn’t tell me. I’ve _talked_ about this wedding. How obnoxious this woman’s been, how her family and mine go way back. About the tradition of economic relations between the Old Families bred out of Watford and Hampshire and London and so on. Weddings are most of our profit. Everyone goes Pitch.

He took it from Pitch.

And if he does the Coven wedding, he’ll have twenty more offers. And then fifty. And then more. Our walk-in sales have already seen a drop since he opened; that’s expected; he’s the glitzy new thing in town. But our catering?

_What the fuck._

The _what_ _the fuck_ feeling carries me to Sweet&Snow in a blind haze. Shepard’s at the till in the middle of a transaction; he looks up and smiles at me despite how I must look: wild-eyed, hair a fit, sneering, flour all over my carhart.

“Hey~ Baz~,” he greets, dragging his syllables out in his blunt accent. He doesn’t even try to stop me pushing into the kitchen. I’ve been here before. I’ve done this before. Wellbelove _would never_ let Snow into Pitch’s back if I didn’t have him on a lead and collar.

Sweet&Snow always smells good and feels busy, but today it’s a little nuttier than normal. The light from the narrow windows makes the shaped tins of final proof breads glow. Every mixer is currently working a dough, the hooks beating and slapping through the stickiness. One oven hisses with a steam injection. The speedracks spill over with cooling bakes. And propped against the huge wooden table in the center is Snow, holding a tin bowl like a football in the crook of his arm as he hand mixes something. He’s beautiful, focused and tense, massive arm flexing.

It’s pink. Whatever’s in his bowl is pink. In fact, I’m seeing an awful lot of pink. There’s blushing pink buns on a tray and a dark pink round loaf. There’s cake pans. There’s bundt pans. There’s freeze-dried strawberries. Oh god, do I smell beets dehydrating? Beets aren’t in season. What the hell is he doing?

Pink, pink, pink.

Marcy Coven’s wedding colours because she’s so bloody original. I’ve seen her wedding dress. It looks like someone threw up their ballerina swan lake princess fantasy. Unironic puffball capped sleeves. It’s terrible.

Snow doesn’t notice me, not with his body half turned away from the door, not with his attention split between the bowl in his hand and glancing over into the large commercial mixer working away at what smells like rye. I stalk around the opposite side of the table, my secret presence preserved by the din of the room. There’s a notebook laying open and I lean over to confirm my horrid suspicion. Wedding cakes.

No.

_Worse._

Bread-cake. A monstrous three-tiered bread tower. I can’t fathom anything tackier. It’s his third week GBBO bread tower all over again.

“What the fuck, Snow.”

Snow whirls around, fist plunged into his dough, stuttering my name. “B-Baz. Wh-what - when - B-b-baz. Uh. Hi!”

A bloodred beetroot rye base. A strawberry brioche second layer. And most damning of all: a cardamom and rosé infused milk bread as the crown topper.

These are my fucking flavors. These are Pitch classics. If I was pissed when I walked in here, now I’m incensed. I can’t believe Snow would do this, rip off my work so brazenly. All thoughts of questioning him and warning him off this wedding fly out of my head.

This is _Lamb_ all over again. This is _Au-Delà_ ringing me dry without credit; this is that two-bit new-money phony Braden publishing my fucking recipes in his hack restaurateur cook book and pretending he’s a bloody chef when he isn't capable of making a French omelette. Lamb letting him. Lamb setting me up. Lamb _touching_ me and telling me _that’s how it’s done,_ that everything I’ve made never belonged to me, that I didn’t even belong to me, _that’s how it’s done._

“So not only did you take my client, Snow, but you’re taking my concepts?”

“Uhm,” Snow drags out, blinking widely at me. He fumbles to set his bowl down, hand coming away sticky. “What are you -” he looks at my accusing finger pressed into his notebook. “That’s not- Baz. Hey.”

“Cardamom and rosé, Snow, you think I’d believe you’d stumble on that on your own?”

“Uh, well, no, but I didn’t-”

“And you didn’t want to tell me either?”

“Baz,” he protests, wiping his fingers off furiously. “Jesus, mate, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I snarl. Snow glares and holds up his hands, the dough-smattered towel hanging from his fist. “Why didn’t you tell me you took the Coven wedding?”

“The- the Coven - ah Baz, she just like, came in here all - I tried to tell you.”

Barely. Barely. He’d blustered for three seconds and then had me comfort him cluelessly.

“Days ago, Snow. I told you about the headache this woman’s been for Fiona and I and you,” I gesture at the ugly sketch of an ugly ‘cake.’ “Do this.”

“Fuck, Baz. It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?” I stare down my nose at him, daring him to try to explain himself. My head’s ringing. I feel struck senseless, left with nothing but spoiled feelings and anger. _That’s how it’s done, Bazzy boy. What did you expect, your name? It’s about_ the name. _Not you, Bazzy. Don’t take it so personally. You’re taking it too personally. Why are you always like this. You need to listen. Just listen, Baz._

“Just listen to me, Baz,” Snow tries, taking a step towards me, chin tight and brows drawn.

“I don’t want to,” I bite out, taking a step back. It draws him up short, twists his indignant face into one of concern.

“You’re being ridiculous,” he snaps, snaps the towel down onto the board angrily in exclamatory punctuation to his words. Flour puffs a cloud between us. “That lady came to me. I didn’t go hunting for her. She said she wanted-”

“She wants some hack baker faux-celebrity off shit bloody bake show so she can distract all her guests from her ugly fashion sense and worse taste in food. Congratulations, Snow, I guess you are finally using your status as everyone’s favorite national disaster.”

“F-fuck you,” he sputters, flushing red all down his face (and I know over his chest.) “You’re the one who said to take advantage of the momentum.”

 _“You took advantage of me!_ You’re taking advantage of me,” I shout, waving the sketch at him. “Admit it. Admit you’re using my flavors.”

“You don’t fucking own cardamon rosé.”

“Yes I do! In this town, I do.”

He throws up his hands. “Jesus fuck, Baz. Seriously? Do you hear yourself?”

I'm not going to listen. I'm not going to listen. Do I hear myself? Not really. I’m livid. I’m getting more livid. My blood’s pounding; I can feel my heartbeat in my fingertips. I can feel myself shaking with the tight coil of righteous anger.

“Oi, you listen,” Snow continues, jabbing a finger into my direction. He’s a fighter. He doesn’t take anything laying down. “You said to prioritize myself and my shop. You know I’m in the red for the next couple of years. This gig’s gonna put a profit on the month. I need that. I can’t say no to that. I was gonna until you said to do what I had to do, so I’m doing it. I’m doing what you said to do.”

“And you said you wanted to choose me.” I don’t mean to say it, or to sound so fucking desperate with it, but it’s out and I hate it. I can’t believe I almost believed him. His stress that night had never been about being sleepy and worn down. It’d been over choosing to backstab me and Pitch.

Snow sucks in a breath and heaves it back out, growling over his lungs. “This. Is. Not. About. You. She wanted your fucking cardamon rosé flavor. Yeah, I know it’s your truffle thing. But she’s my client. She wants it, she’s paying for it, she gets it.”

“So much for us not being competitors, huh, Snow?” I’m shaking my head and backing up. Pitch’s don't run. I’m not running. I’m letting it go. “Have fun with her. Three weeks? That’s what you have left to do this.”

“I’m good in a pinch,” he continues to growl, tracking my departure. (Surrender. Fleeing.)

I laugh at him, shaking - shaking my head. I’m shaking. I’m coming down off a high. I’m dropping from my rage. Now I just feel sick. Sick and sad and sorry for myself. “Alright, Snow, see how this compares to your little showstoppers. The most memorable day of someone’s life. Enjoy.”

His shoulders slump. He says my name like it's the only word he has left. “Baz.”

“What? What? Want advice? Want a recipe? Want me to do it for you?”

He scrubs his hand over his face, tracking dust and dough up his cheek and into his hair. He looks worse than he did a few nights ago. He’s going to look dead if he makes it through this. I know how this goes. “Can we just - can you - I can’t do this right now.”

“No,” I manage, feeling a little more level. I’m glad I never made him cry. I don’t even like how sorry his face looks right now. “No, you really can’t.”

“Baz,” he tries again, making for me once more. I hold my ground this time even if it is in the middle of his own damned kitchen. He doesn’t go much further than a few steps; it was just for show. He’s so showy. He’s nothing but an illusion. “Please don’t storm out of here in a strop.”

“I’m not in a strop,” I say cooly, straightening my spine, forcing myself into control. Simon Snow will not ruin me. “I’m far too disinterested to be in a strop. I’m merely going to go find myself front row seats to your failure.”

“Wow,” he blows out, wringing the towel in his hands and looking down at his feet. “Thought you believed in me but uh, yeah, uh, a-alright.”

“Alright,” I confirm, smoothing my frazzled hair from my forehead. “Thanks for the orgasms, Snow. They were adequate.”

“Get fucked,” he mumbles, barely audible over the whir equipment. “And get out.”

It’s not running away. It’s merely an exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry <3 this is why theres a tag for wedding cake nightmares :((
> 
> Also the cake in question is not a korovai it's a cultureless riff in this scenario


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ! I wish you all depraved baz-level lust and longing.
> 
> rivals to lovers to breadiots <3

* * *

**SIMON**

I fucked up.

I fucked up so fucking bad.

I am fucking up right now in a continual fuck-up spiral. I am in the fuck-up spiral and I get motion sick so it’s extra bad. I can’t stop. I can’t stop the Fuck-Up Spiral, and I can’t stop what I’m doing to try to stop it or get out because I’m in over my head.

Baz was right.

I mean, _no_ , he _wasn_ ’t, he was an _arsehole_ , but he was right too. Except _No He Wasn’t, He Was An Arsehole_ , except I’m an arsehole too. Apparently. Yeah, no, definitely. We’re both shitty arseholes I guess. Fuck.

It takes a lot of effort not to think about Baz. About that whole...thing. The yelling. The way he looked. What he said. He was so mad. He was so mad and he was...more than mad. Hurt. Freaking the fuck out. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not great at talking in the best of scenarios and being yelled at is a big no-go for me. He just went off; showed up at my kitchen to blow his lid. I just - I didn’t know what to say to make him listen. Kinda stupid. Kinda stupid and kinda obvious. He didn’t want to listen. I know that. He came in mad, he brought something to me I didn't know about. Shady bastard. Fuck. Fuck. I’m so useless.

_Turn the page._

That’s all he had to do. That’s all I had to say. _Turn the page you stupid git._ He was on the wrong page.

I couldn’t get a word out and when I finally could, he’d already ripped me apart. I kinda figured he always thought I was tacky for the GBBO thing (he’s really underestimating how much work it’d been. Everything from the rigorous try-outs and that cost and then the actual competition and doing it all while still working-) But still. Him just throwing everything I’d worked for to make my own way in the world under the bus. Like he hadn't said what he'd said to me just a few nights ago. He hadn't let me get a word in edgewise that night either. Maybe if he wasn't so sure he had the answers we wouldn't be in this mess.

That's not fair of me. I could have tried harder. Should have. I didn’t want us to be competition. I don’t- he - He's not fair.

I can’t -

I can’t even think straight.

Baz. Yelling. Me, stupid. Stupid and useless and couldn’t even explain, and then he left and I didn’t try to stop him. Not even sure if I wanted to, if he’d even let me. I almost did, and then I had the same piercing thought I’d had the first time he walked into my shop; that if I touched him, he’d cut me like broken glass. It’s pretty much been a constant loop in my mind and it happened days ago. His face. Anger, betrayal, hurt.

(Broken glass. Broken glass. Who broke him open.)

All I’d done after he’d walked out, so fucking cool, so fucking distant like he hadn’t been incandescent a minute ago, was stand there and start to cry. I don’t know how things get the way they do sometimes. It’s like I can never really get my grip on the world, on what’s happening, on who’s in my life, on what I’m even doing.

For a little bit, I thought I did, had a grip and everything. I don’t think the panicky feeling has left me since the day I put up for the loan for Sweet&Snow and signed a lot of papers and basically handed my bollocks over to the bank and let them pork me. Or it never left, not after Ebb died. Panicky cause I’m just me and everything else is so big and swallowing and I’m trying so hard, everyday, keeping my head screwed on and one foot in front of the other and it’s good, you know, most days, and I’ve got Penny and now Shepard and I’ve got my own business, something to stand by and be proud of, and I guess I got greedy. Wanted everything. I wanted all the things I didn’t think I could want or have. Didn’t want to make sacrifices either. Felt like the whole first half of my life had been sacrifice enough, like I paid my dues to the universe and now my debts were settled. Except it’s not like that.

So Bas was right. (But he’s still an arsehole.) I wanted my cake and to eat it too. Kind of literally. (Baz is the cake.) (The cake is the cake.) (There is no cake.) Go fucking figure. Bet the universe thinks it’s real funny yanking me around like this.

So I cried because Ebb always said to cry if you felt like it. She’d probably cry with me too even if she didn’t know what I was crying about; Ebb always had a cry worked up and waiting in the wings. Her sadness went on bottomlessly, but she said grief wasn’t the only well that never ran dry. Love too. You can’t have grief if you don’t have love, so everytime she got sad she was really feeling the other side of love. That’s why she was such a good person. She was bottomless.

But Ebb’s not here anymore.

I don’t have time to be bottomless. I’m in a Fuck-Up Spiral. So I cried for a minute and then turned away and got back to work. I’m good at that. Put my head down, work, keep going, come up for air when the bombs stop going off in my head. I had a meeting with Macy Coven that afternoon to give her my _alternative pitch._ (The universe thinks it’s real fucking funny.)

Macy Coven wants to break free from tradition. The wedding has grown out of hand. (Oi, love, someone coulda said that three hundred guests ago.) Her parents and her grandparents are breathing down her neck about every decision. It’s supposed to be her day (okay and the groom’s too but he was mostly just wringing his hands and looking nervous that day in the bakery so I’m not giving him much credit.) This was all well and sympathetic except she has a deranged glint in her eye and everytime she smiles at me it gives me the creeps. She got her teeth whitened for the event and I can see my reflection in her incisors.

Lady blew in like a storm to the bakery a couple of days ago, a rehearsed proposition in her mouth and a checkbook at the ready, holding my hand like I was at the bleeding altar with her. I think I blinked out. Took me twenty minutes of being accosted to stumble out “But Baz?” like his name alone is a complete thought.

(It feels like that most days. How complete and full and much much much he is, a total and absurd sensory experience. He's off his rocker and taking me to the floor with him.)

“Pitch is lovely and very suitable for the occasion, but I want something a little off the beaten path. Everyone expects Pitch. I don’t want Pitch. I want _you_.”

So instead of four hundred fifty macarons, she wants four hundred fifty scones on top of a bread tower. The scone sale alone would - fwoo!

“I know this is short notice. We,” she looked at her fiance for that, “were at odds about the decision. Half of me doesn’t want a cake at all, just for the shock value!” She laughed as she said it, still holding my hand even though I was sweating by that point. “Do you have prices for bulk purchasing? Do you have prices for custom orders?”

“Kind of?” (Sweat's crawling down my arsecrack at this point.)

“Price won’t be an issue. We’ll compensate you for the crunch time. But will you consider?”

And I had considered, after I’d all but died in my own kitchen from shock. I’d gone to Baz. I tried to explain. I did. I should have tried harder, except he ended up saying exactly what I needed him to say. Penny doubled down on it.

Come to think of it, I could try blaming Penny for this mess.

“Oh no, Simon, you do _not_ get to blame me,” is how she reacted the second I started to even try to be upset at anyone but myself. “I said you didn’t have to ask his permission, I didn’t say not to tell him about it at all. I don’t even like him but you should have told him.”

Shepard feels guilty for letting Baz into my kitchen that day, especially when he popped in after Baz left and caught me crying and didn’t know what to do. (“Bro, uhm, you good? You want a hug?”) I love Shepard. He’s as useless as I am sometimes. (I did want a hug. Shepard gives good hugs.) Besides, it was an honest mistake. He thought Baz’s murder-face had been Baz’s horny-face. They’re easy to mix up.

So I was working up to talking to Baz. I had a meeting that afternoon with Macy and after I was going to talk to him about it all. Penny was right. I don’t need to ask his permission. If someone wanted cardamom fucking rosé and wanted it from me then they can have it. I'm not gonna ask some other baker for permission to sell brioche am I? Claiming intellectual property in the food world doesn't give you much of a leg to stand on. We all borrow. We all steal. Whether you wanna call it colonization or globalization or cosmopolitanism or just a healthy appetite; we wanna eat and feed people and eat some more. I’m not tuned in like some people in the industry, but it’s all passing knowledge on, forever and ever amen. Baz isn’t the first person to make a cardamom rosé truffle and he won’t be the last, and if some lady wants me to make it for her, I sure can.

But I won’t.

First of all, I think it’s a gross flavor. It’s so subtle I’m bored to tears just thinking about it. Second, I always thought it was rosé like the wine but no, people want to eat rose, like the flower. I’m so bad at French. I get lavender stuff, like, I get it, but roses? It’s stop and smell the roses, not stop and eat the roses. This just goes back to the first point because floral flavors make my mouth feel funny. Penny says I'm not allergic but she's not a doctor. Early gray tea makes my tummy sick and floral flavors make the back of my throat tingle and my arms splotchy. Chamomile is plain nasty.

Third of all, and most important: that’s Baz’s thing. And while I wasn’t going to ask his permission to take up a client who didn’t want him, I sure as hell wasn’t going to turn around and use his menu. Not even cause he and I were dating but because that’s just weak. Macy had had the flavors in her mind from a tasting she’d already done with Pitch so that’s the first draft I’d done when this all began and naturally, because the universe loves me, that’s what Baz saw that sent him into a fit.

Cardamom fucking rosé. If I never hear the words again, it’ll be too soon.

Whatever.

All she wants is pink. Even a hack baker like me can do that, huh.

So I went to the meeting with strawberry, raspberry, and black cherry brioche tiers, topped with champagne jellies and and lemon butter cream cheese. I put my foot down about not riffing off Pitch. If she liked the flavors she tried from them, she should have gone Pitch. I mean, she _really_ should have gone with Pitch. I try to make it as froo-froo as I can but I know Baz would make it a million times prettier. (He makes everything pretty.)

Honestly, I think she just wanted to be done with the whole thing. Baz was right. She just wanted my name. Stupid. Stupid. (He’s an arsehole.)

It’s a little like GBBO, to be honest, except instead of having weeks ahead to think of the bake, I have three weeks to plan it and rough it and bake it and panic. Panic a lot. I was already running on fumes before all this. Here’s kind of how it goes.

Agree. Plan. Price. (Heavy on the guessing.) Plan. Don’t think about Baz. Plan. Plan. Bake. Cry into a loaf of bread. Think about Baz. Wipe my tears with brioche. Regret my life choices. Miss Baz. Yell into a mixing bowl. Bake. Order. Bake. Remember the concept of sleep. Call Penny for a pep talk. Keep the bakery in stock of its regular items while I faff about desperately in the back. Think about Baz.

Think about Baz a lot. He’s like a ringing in my head. I feel like a cartoon who's been punched and now I’m on my arse seeing stars and hearing nursery rhymes while the world turns upside down. Penny says he’s a jerk. To forget about him. To stop talking about him. Shepard, who’s met him a few more times than Penny, didn’t say much, just hmm’d and huh’d a lot when I went over it all for the zillionth time while they made sure I ate a real meal (with vegetables) and didn’t stress myself to death.

The days fly by, the wedding looming up on me like a big rolling boulder in a tiny tunnel while I truck it barely keeping from getting crushed or pissing my pants.

**BAZ**

“You’re fired.”

Wellbelove, cheeks bulging, looks up from her textbook, second-hand embarrassment clear in her brilliant eyes. Her butter-greased fingers dent into the babka she’d been eating. I hold her gaze meaningfully while she chews in pronounced silence, squinting with each audible squish of her jammed maw. She’d been trying to eat quickly, tearing huge snatches of babka off and cramming them into her face, no doubt while the pastry’s still in the prime of tender warmth. I’d been watching her through the window of the swinging doors, growing more deranged each time she licked her fingers clean of chocolate and poppyseed paste. Curse Snow for making that the standard after I told him I preferred it.

I do believe I made it illegal to eat Snow’s creations in the shop, and here Wellbelove shamelessly flaunts her crimes like I run some kind of disorderly house with bare ankles and crumbs all down our tits.

She swallows and licks her lips. “You'd never fire me.”

“Try me.”

“You'd have to hire someone new.”

New people. New people are worse than the people I already know. Damn Wellbelove and her flawless logic. I snatch the bag from her. “I’m confiscating this.”

She shakes her head at me, licking her thumb again. I can see what she’s thinking: sad sad man Basilton. I am a sad man. I scurry into the kitchen and into the tiny closet-turned-office to sulk and gnash my teeth and eat babka, hunched on a rolly spinny stool that swivels and creaks beneath the fervor of my gargoylish gobbling.

My crew has turned against me. I can smell mutiny. Snow’s infiltrated my own shop with his butter exploits. Don’t they know he’s a traitor? A villain of the worst order? Wellbelove brings in his goods every other day to punish me. They’re all duped, blind, beyond reason. I’m the only person left in this entire town with any good sense or judgement of character; my righteous moral superiority will be the last shining beacon of integrity left standing in the ruins of Watford.

Call me Ozymandias.

(The now-empty Sweet&Snow bag magically hides itself like a shame wank tissue into the bottom of the office bin.)

I stay on high alert whenever I’m about town but surprisingly haven’t run into Snow once in the days following my third eye being opened. Before this, everyday had been filled with Snow. He’d burst into Watford and into my life like a blow to the head, leaving me dizzy and disordered. Even weeks after we’d arrived to the inevitable finale of our ill-advised tryst, I’ve yet to regain my footing. It took me years to reconstruct my stability. He's blown it all to shit. Fiona’s been, while not helpful, not unkind either despite her original stance. She's mostly keeping an eye on me and acting as normal, poised to taze me should I don a trenchcoat and take up flashing as a form of catharsis; that at least brings comfort. Someone will reprimand me if things slide too far out of skew. It's fine. I'm fine. Get ahold of yourself, boyo, you're a Pitch. Exactly.

I'm a Pitch, and I won't be reduced to scrapping with Egor Alan, future husband of Macy Coven, in the Tesco while we both stand to buy cigarettes behind an old lady counting her change. He looks at me. He looks away. He looks at me again and I sigh into my scarf. This is happening, isn’t it?

“Oh, ah, nice to see you again, Mr. Pitch,” Egor greets with all the pronounced awkwardness fitting a cultivated and neutered man of English breeding such as he.

“Quite.” I nod appropriately and pray the moment over, but I never get my wish. I hand over a tenner for my pack, suffering the cashier’s slow grasp of maths as the eleven cents of change foils him.

“No hard feelings, I hope. Macy still loves your family’s place. And the-the tasting we did, stunning. Really exemplary.”

Keep it together, Basilton.

Nodding and tearing into my fresh pack of cigarettes, I sidestep Egor as he buys crisps and gum. “Yes, well, cheers to you two; do hope Snow doesn’t ruin your special day.” I deliver this sentiment paper-dry and Egor laughs and fails to appreciate how serious I’m being.

“He seems capable, doesn’t he? Pitched Macy a new concept for the cake and everything - heh. Pitched.”

My momentary confusion leaves me stunned long enough inside the door that he mistakes this for further interest in conversing. I end up pushing the door open with my body as he nods to me, smiling; he’s a little more charming when he smiles; some of the nervousness shakes off him.

“New concept?” I ask casually as I light a fag, allowing myself to be walked in the wrong direction from my apartment.

“Oh, absolutely. We knew that going into it that he’d want to do his own thing. He was fairly particular about not imitating you. Makes sense; he wouldn’t want to look like he’s a copycat, not when your work is so well known among our circle. Macy’s just glad he agreed; she’d been holding out hope for him ever since the bakery announcement - no offense, Mr. Pitch. Took her twenty fights with her mum to let Macy choose her own cake.”

He opens up the sleeve of his gum packet and offers me a slice. I end up accepting just to buy myself another minute of his time.

“When did this happen?”

“I should have spoken to Fiona sooner, I know; my apologies; she scares me a bit.”

“No. Not that. When did Snow say he was doing his own concept?”

“Hmm? Oh. I suppose before he agreed to do it.”

I’m so caught up in a second wind of _what the fuck_ that I put the gum in my mouth and let my cigarette burn down to my fingertips.

**CLOSED THIS SATURDAY!**  
**REGULAR SUNDAY HOURS!**

There’s no way to miss the sad sorry sign hanging off on the inside of Sweet&Snow’s door the night before the Coven wedding. It appears sometime late Friday evening, the copy paper bright as a ghost in the window. Dev elbows me hard on our way to the pub the first time we pass the bakery and then, later when he’s pissed, he slaps me on the back as we pass it a second time, returning from that side of town.

“Think he died?” Dev hops around to my other side and slings his arm over my shoulder, bashing us together with his campari spritz fueled enthusiasm. No matter how much I mocked him for drinking them tonight, he insisted they were cool. Frankly, drinking a spritz at any time other than a summer afternoon constitutes death by firing squad, but I let him live another day. I am a just and merciful man.

“Most likely.”

I drag my weight, just on the edge of drunk enough to hop once to try to see into Snow’s high windows. All I can see is that the bakery kitchen lights are still on.

“Dev.”

“Hmm?” He sways in place.

Don’t do it Basilton. Keep walking.

“I’m going to pick you up.”

Dev, an enthusiastic supporter of my whims - good man - lifts up his arms like a toddler waiting to be undressed.

“Tell me if Snow’s dead in there.” I grab him around the middle and heave up - here goes the baby! ("Wheee!") Snow will really think I'm spying now. After two seconds of groping at the window ledge and scraping brick dust onto me, Dev's inner ear betray us; he throws his weight backwards (or maybe I've been jostling him. Who's to say.) After my fourth drink tonight, god saw fit to replace my legs with the limbs of a newborn giraffe, so this situation escalates in rapid cre-and-decrescendo. Here comes the baby! ("Fuck.") I crack him into the side of the building in an attempt to counterbalance. He proceeds to knee me in the throat. We go down like fallen kings in battle.

“He’s in there,” Dev groans, rolling over into a pile of cigarette butts and infringing on a rather peeved rat’s sausage roll snacktime. Or fucktime? The rat seemed in a rather compromising position with the roll. I feel a kinship to it in that moment. Have we not all been tempted by a roll or two? I comfort myself with a silently hissed _yes._

“I’m going to kill Snow,” I tell the night air. He’s why I have thoughts like this. He’s done this to me. I have to kill him.

That in mind, I get to my feet and pull Dev to his, and we keep going. I’m a Pitch, after all. And he’s a Grimm. Such is the way of things. Dev walks me back to my apartment and I wait for his uber to arrive before discretely letting myself into Pitch instead of my home. (Who am I kidding; I live here.) I pinch my way through two pain du chocolates while the espresso machine sacrifices to the devil and cavorts with banshees. (I shall name her...Goody Proctor.) Armed with good will, two americanos, and the low self-confidence of a hopeless homosexual, I assault the front door of Sweet&Snow with the toe of my boot.

If it scuffs, I’ll make Snow buy me a new one with the no-money he has. Maybe it’ll put him under.

My kicks jostle the scrap of paper hanging by a tongue of tape. Good. I hope it falls down. That’ll show him.

The front light pops on and Snow appears, filling up the space of the glass door.

Oh, hell, I suppose I’ve made this happen, haven’t I? I didn’t think this through. I mean, yes yes, I knew he was here in theory, in a metaphysical noncorporeal way, but I didn’t really consider that he in his entire physical form and human self was _actually_ here. That’s a bit much, isn’t it?

Is that a fucking _beard_? _That_ is a bit much.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I sneer.

He opens the door inward; the smell of browned butter and hot sugar pours out around him; my tongue pokes unbidden from between my lips to lap at the air, servant and snake to the memory of his taste. I want to pant open-mouthed at the sense of him washing over me, replacing all my prior decrees and designations. (I want to run my mouth over the rough bronze hair filled over his jaw. I want him to sand my thighs smooth with his cheeks. I want him to eat me out with his messy hunger until he’s so sopping wet with spit he can wring out his beard into a glass for me to drink.)

“What are you doing here,” Snow demands tiredly, crossing his arm and slouching into the frame of his store. He looks as bad as I thought he would with a face chapped from oven heat, curls matted with grease, and the space beneath his eyes carved out by sleeplessness. He’s rolling his ankles as he stands, shifting his weight from one foot to the next; I have very little doubt that his feet are shrieking dogs in his shoes.

“To see if you were dead.”

He closes his eyes and drops his head backwards into the frame. He breathes deeply, his impossible chest swelling up; he holds it; I hold my breath too. I wait for one of his dramatic and profound whooshing exhales, but instead he lets go silently, opening his mouth and deflating. He looks like he lost a little weight. It’s almost been a month since I’ve seen him. The Christmas rush used to drop me down a hole in my belt and I never had many holes to spare. I could slide my hand between the waist of his dickies and his belly with ease right now.

“Yeah, Baz, I’m dead.”

“That’s a pity.”

His mouth twitches, premeditating the sudden opening of his eyes as finally _looks_ at me. “You smell like a pub.”

“The pub smells like me.” I offer him a coffee with the Pitch logo blazed on the front.

He hums and accepts it. “Poisoned?”

“I spat in it.”

“Thought spitting costed extra,” he mumbles to himself as he peels off the plastic lid to sniff the contents. I grin before I can stop myself; he catches the expression on my face when he looks up from under his lash. He always looks up from under his lashes at me. “Why are you here, Baz?”

“To heckle you.”

He caps the coffee and straightens up to his unformidable height and threatening breadth, squaring off for one despairing moment like he’s debating knocking me onto my arse. I hope not; there’s not a lot of cushioning back there (gasp!) to absorb a second spill of the night. My hip’s already waging a protest from the crash with Dev. One more bruise and my bones will unionize and then what will I tell father.

Then, with his foot, Snow holds open the door and steps aside to grant me entrance. I slip in before either of us overthinks it.

“Have at it,” he says to my back, prompting me to turn in confusion. Have at it? I lift a demeaning eyebrow to cover how quickly I’ve lost the plot. Snow sips his coffee. “Heckle away. Give me a good telling off. It might give me the adrenaline to finish this damned cake.”

“It’s not finished yet? Snow, the wedding’s,” I glance at my watch. “Today.”

He shrugs, both arms flopping open.

“You’re a disaster,” I tell him seriously.

“Yeah,” he drawls, accent a thick burr in his mouth. He’s cottony with weariness, the voice rumbling from him one I’ve heard only in the dark swath of my sheets and the half-made dreams of our nights together. “Get really mean with me, Baz. Give me a boost.”

“That’s not why I came here,” I snap.

“You sure?” He smiles carelessly, devastatingly. “That’s why you came here last time. To shit all over me.”

“That’s….” I’d wring his neck if I thought I could get my hands around the trunk of it. Stupid thick bastard. Thwarted from homicide by Snow’s brutal physicality, I’m left with no other choice but to communicate with my words. “That’s not the last impression I want you to have of me.”

The bolt of his jaw jumps. “Alright,” he growls out, suspicious. “What’s it gonna be then, Baz.”

What will it be? Why am I here? Because he didn’t copy my flavors. Because I may have overreacted. Because I’m a Pitch and we don’t run away.

“Let me see the cake.”

“Uh.” His left eye twitches a little. “Uhm, that’s- it’s.

“Snow. Show me the cake.”

He lifts his chin. “You gonna...do something to it?”

“What do I look like to you, a cake-murderer?”

“In certain lighting, yes. Well. In a lot of lighting you just look like a normal murderer.”

“It’s my devilishly good looks.” I hold out my hand. “I won’t murder the cake. Truce.”

Snow looks at my hand skeptically. “Is this a plot?”

“Undoubtedly.”

He glares at me. “What do you know about gelatin bubbles.”

“More than you,” I promise him. I wiggle my fingers enticingly. I want to see this cake, and I’m debating making a run for it. I can hop the counter. But if he tackles me, he’d snap me in two. “Simon.”

He caves. He takes my hand, holding it in his scorching grip. Jesus. I forgot he runs hotter than any damn oven I’ve ever touched. “I never know what to expect from you,” he complains bitterly.

I cheers him with my coffee and a manic grin. “You and me both.”

“Christ. Alright,” he agrees and drags me by the hand into the back of the kitchen.

There’s not one, not two, not three, but four full sized cakes in various stages of decoration.

“Snow. What the fuck.”

“I panicked.”

My eyebrow goes up. “I can tell.”

I survey them with a quick critical eye and point to the second one. It’s standing tall and proud and hasn’t sunken or suffered from the sloppy scraped application of what I desperately hope is frosting. (I don’t know what else it could be but I’m not going to make too many assumptions.) “That one’s your best bet.”

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly. “I thought so too.”

It looks like a Pinkalicious gangbang took place on every horizontal surface. There’s a pan of _something_ collapsing into a dwarf star on his two-range.

“Shit,” Simon curses and darts for it. I think it might have been sugar at one point. He grabs the smoking pan with a towel and flings it into the nearest bin. We listen to the garbage lining hiss and the smell of melted plastic fills the kitchen. He stares into the compromised receptacle for a contemplative minute, waiting for it to burst into flames, before looking over his shoulder at me. “I’m never doing a wedding again.”

“For the best,” I agree lightly, crossing the room to poke at the cake and sniff it. Fruity. Fruity and pink and not my flavor palette at all.

“No, I mean it. I’m never doing weddings again. You can have them.”

“You’re so generous.” I point to the dilapidated collapsed cake at the far end of the table. “Can I eat some of that?”

He waves it to me distractedly. “Have at it.”

I tear off a hunk from each tier. It’s brioche all the way through. Cherry. Strawberry. Raspberry. A bit of lemon cream cheese frosting it seems. It’s so blunt. It’s so Snow. It’s completely Snow. Nothing complex, nothing complicated. Buttery brioche. Bright fruit flavors. Pink and sweet. “It tastes good at least.”

“They’re too - too - it’s too much! I don’t know how you do it. I don’t want to do someone’s big special day. I just want to bake bread. I want to do the little thing, everyday. Just brekky toast. Small. Simple. Daily.”

“You’re not made to showstop.”

“No!” he blusters, whirling on me. He’s puffed up and flushed; I think the fumes have gotten to him. “I’m not! I don’t like it, nuh-uh, not - not at all. I only agreed cause I needed the money and it was kind of nice at first, like oh, that’s - they liked me, or something but, but obviously,” he waves his arms around, gesturing at the kitchen and then at me, “it fucked everything up. I’m not the guy who does the big thing at the end. The big important thing. I want to do the boring everyday thing. I like the everyday thing. Ordinary and good.”

I pick a cherry out from the bottom tier and watch Snow watch me. “Are you done?”

He huffs and crosses his arms and then drops them again and joins me at the table, shoulders pulled up near his ears and eyes narrow with wariness. “Yeah.”

“We need to finish the cake.”

“We?”

“Drink your coffee and tell me the plan.”

“Baz. You - Baz, don’t do this,” he whines tiredly, pulling on his curls and then dragging his hand down to tug on his beard. Worn-ragged looks way too good on him. “Don’t fucking pity me.”

“But you’re so pitiable,” I coo, reaching for him. I want to pet him. I want to smooth his hair back. I want to fix this bloody cake behind me. Snow grabs my hand in a gentle grip and holds it at bay.

“I don’t know who the real you is,” Snow whispers. His soft voice cuts through me. I try to jerk my hand back, to fling myself away, but he holds on. “One day you believe in me. The next you don’t. You want me to fail. Now you want to help.” His thumb presses into the center of my palm in a piercing stigmata.

“Let go.”

Snow lets go, holding his hand up. I breathe and uncoil. He watches me openly, face screwed and snubbed as he tries to puzzle me out. I want to tell him he has no chance. That I spent a hefty sum of money trying to do that already. Don’t waste your limited mental capacity, Snow, you’ll hurt yourself thinking that hard. You can’t figure this out through force of will.

“Consider my assistance a professional courtesy,” I say, recovering quickly. Snow’s confusion only compounds with the passing seconds. The moment needs to end. “In the name of friendly competition.”

“We’re not competitors,” he mumbles.

“Right now, we are.”

“Yeah well, not again. Never again. Not interested.”

“That’s all well and good but-”

“No! Shit!” Simon pushes away from the center worktable. “Stop. Stop talking.”

“Don’t-”

“ _Don’t tell you what to do,_ yes, I know. But. Just. Listen. Baz. Just - just listen, alright,” he holds up his hands, no jabbing a finger in my face this time. He’s too tired to fight me tonight. “I’m sorry. Alright? I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you about taking the Coven wedding because I didn’t know how. Well, first you talk a lot. Christ, you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you fucking nut but - I wasn’t even ready to totally accept it when you lost your shit on me because I hadn’t gotten them to agree to what not doing your fucking flavors. Alright? But I’m sorry. I am. Fuck weddings but fuck me being the person to make you look so batty that day. No business is worth it if you’re going to _look like that!_ ”

“Snow I-”

“But fuck you too, you stupid arse," he warns. I stand mistaken. Snow will always have enough energy to fight. He’s stunning. And I’m a stupid arse. “For saying all that shit to me and assuming I’d just fuck you over like that. That I’d be that kind of man. I’m not that guy.”

Maybe he isn’t. As often as I told myself to expect it, maybe I willed it into existence, self-prophesied the downfall as if it would spare either of us.

“Sorry,” I whisper, dropping my gaze to the floor to hide the burning in my face and the burning in my eyes. Snow’s black nonslips have turned white with flour, crusts of dried yolk flaking in the laces. He needs to crawl his entire body into a washing machine and be tumble dried on low heat.

“Baz...Baz, are you crying?”

“No.” I’m not. I won’t. I’m not. I’m really not. I don’t cry in kitchens. Not anymore. If I’m going to cry, I’ll find a walk-in at the least, but never in a kitchen. It doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s not how it’s done. “The only thing worth crying about in this kitchen is your sense of decorating.”

When I lift my face, Snow’s mauling his bottom lip and staring at me, hands outstretched and unsure. I raise my coffeecup between us like a shield and take a long draining gulp.

“Talk to me about these gelatin bubbles,” I demand.

“You really really don’t have to help, Baz.”

“I _know_ I don’t have to. _No one_ can make me do anything I don’t want to do.” I say it as much for him as for myself. It's good to remind myself. “Now stop looking so pathetic and let’s finish this bloody cake so I can sleep at night. I’ll have nightmares of it seeking revenge otherwise."

“I also have to bake a lot of scones.”

“Wait until the cake’s done. You’ll fuck the humidity if you get all the oven’s running.”

“Right, yeah,” he nods, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides before he nods again, knuckling his eyes and cracking a yawn. “Right. Alright.”

We don’t touch. We barely talk. We work. He puts his head down and I raise mine up and we make something decent out of the twilight hours.

His bakery stays closed all Saturdays, and I call in sick to Fiona’s voicemail, drowsily rattling off what needs to be done for the day before crawling into my bed smelling like sugar and butter and the cigarette I shared with Snow. I can taste the kiss we didn’t share; it would have tasted like sweet and smoke. Fiona tries to batter down my door for an hour until she’s forced to go refresh her piping skills. She’s not as good as me, but she can fill an eclair as well as anyone. Theoretically. I do receive a text from Wellbeloeve around 1pm of a tray of crushed choux with _you’re next_ written in pastry cream.

Christ. I hope.

Come Monday, when we should all be sleeping, I receive a text from Snow. He’d texted me once to let me know the wedding went off without a hitch from his end and I said way to not fuck up. It’d been silence since. Granted, it’d been two days and I can only assume he’s been recovering. I’m recovering; not from the late night, but from Snow himself. The want for him. The want for the softness of him. For him to think well of me. For me to let myself think well of him. To be able to want without suspicion.

_Can i convince u to come to the shop_

_What are you offering in return for my presence?_

_Bread n sexual favors_

_They sell that at Tesco_

_Reviews say im the best in town_

_Reviews don’t know you fall asleep after. Perhaps I’ll correct them._

_Everyone knows bread makes u sleepy:((_

_That’s not how carbohydrates work._

_Baz_  
_Baz come here_  
_Pls_

_Fine._

I go. I expect nothing. I won’t let myself expect anything. Maybe a snog. Maybe an ill advised handie where I’ll leave assprints on the door of his fridge. Maybe him sweet-talking me onto a date. Maybe a restraining order. The world’s my oyster. Life's a box of chocolates. You get the idea.

It’s a restraining order.

“Here,” Snow says, handing me a folded piece of paper. I take it and he snatches his hands away like I’m an open flame. He stares at me expectantly as I strike the papercut edge of it with my thumb. The moment stretches. “Aren’t you gonna open it?”

“Am I legally allowed to read it in your presence?”

His brows converge to a point. “Huh? God, you’re weird. Just open it. I feel like a tit.” He flaps his hands urgently at me and I acquiesce, tutting my tongue at him on principle. It’s not a restraining order. It’s a recipe.

_Sweet &Snow Sour Cherry Scones. Small Batch. Yield: 15  
_

  * _230g AP + 70g for dusting_
  * _230g Salted Irish Butter - Frozen Shaved_
  * _20g BP_
  * _1 tsp vanilla_
  * _1 tsp cinnamon_
  * _75ml buttermilk_
  * _2 whole eggs + wash_
  * _80g sugar_
  * _125g frozen sour cherries_



“What is this?”

“Says it on the tin, mate.”

“Yes, but, _what_ _is this_.” I wave it once, the white of it a surrender.

He shrugs and shoves his hands into the front pocket of his red hoodie. “Ammunition. Apology. Truce. Insurance. A sexy favour. Whatever you want it to be.” He shrugs again. “Yours to keep.”

“I’m going to put you out of business,” I threaten on instinct. He shrugs again. “I’m going to publish this.” He nods and scuffs his the toe of his trainer against his floor. He’s not in his work clothes today. Just soft broken in jeans and his hoodie. I narrow my eyes at him. What the hell is he playing at? “I’m going to make better scones than you.”

“Oh piss off,” he laughs. “Can’t do that.”

“I can too.”

“I’d have to show you how to make them.”

I look at the recipe. It has the measurements but no method. “It’s scones.”

He fixes me with his boyish crooked grin. “I make them special.”

Everyone and their mother thinks they make scones a special way. But Snow might actually have a secret up his sleeve or simply possess the magic touch. “Why did you give me this?”

“I told you why.”

“No.” I shake my head at him. “You told me _what_ this is. You didn’t tell me _why_. If this is thank you for the other night, I’d like to return it for a sexual favor and loaf of bread. One with olives.”

Snow mumbles incoherently and does one of his dramatic showy heavy sighs and exaggerated swallows and throws in a jaw clench or two for good measure. “I’m not the guy.”

“I beg your pardon?”

For all his fretting and protesting a second ago, Snow squares up and fixes his unwavering gaze on me, determined to make an impact. “Someone hurt you. Professionally, yeah? Personally?”

It’s my turn to clench my jaw. I do so love a profound understatement.

Snow nods, like that’s all he needed. “I’m not that guy. I don’t know how else to...to show you that. I mean. Aside from like, not being that guy everyday forever. Because fuck that guy.”

“Fuck that guy,” I agree, wrapping one arm around myself and rocking my weight from one foot to the next. “Professionally. Personally.”

“Fuck him,” Snow repeats lowly. I can see him make a fist inside the pocket of his hoodie. “Don’t wanna be anything like him. So.” He shrugs, like this isn't upending my world completely. “That’s yours to hold onto. If it helps. I hope it helps.”

Snow doesn’t have much to his name. He’s barely a name at all. Snow. That’s not much of a name. But most days, I’m only a name. Pitch. All that being a Pitch does is keep me on my feet. Haven’t been able to keep my balance since I met Snow, so not much good there these days. He's both been everything I've expected and wholly unexpected. He's not anyone else but himself, and he's trying. He's offering me something I can have, if I want it. And I do. I want it.

“I said some things,” I start delicately.

Snow snorts indelicately. “You were an arsehole. But. I get it.”

“I do believe in you,” I press, determined, taking an equally determined step closer to him. He sets his chin and tips his head down, cursing me with his lashes again. “And you were wonderful on Bake Off.”

He squints. “You watched? You watched _me?”_

I draw myself up imperiously. “Simon Snow, I...rooted for you.”

(What, you think I'll tell him all my secrets? You have to leave something to the imagination.)

He blinks his eyes clear and his cheeks turn as pink as that blasted cake. I admire the increasing proximity of his face as he leans forward and kisses the tip of my nose. I suppose that’s fair. It’s the closest thing to him. “You’re a dickhead.”

“Most people would say ‘thank you.’”

“Yeah well you didn’t root for me the past three weeks.”

“Yes, well, I’m a dickhead, not a saint.”

“You’re definitely not a saint,” he smirks.

I pretend to be disinterested in the curve of his mouth and the ridiculous waggle of his eyebrows, instead busying myself in folding the recipe into a smaller square to slide into my wallet next to my oodles of cash. “Show me how to make these magical secret scones of yours so I can trunce you at - Snow!" I cinch my legs around his waist out of self-preservation and smack a hand on his shoulder in chastisement. Then I wrap an arm around his neck. For security purposes. “You cannot just pick me up!”

“Ah, no, I can.” He bounces me a little to shift my weight and cradles me, bringing out faces together to bump noses. I have no fear of falling from his arms. “Can’t I?”

“You have no manners.”

“May I?”

“I don’t even like you,” I warn him.

He bites his bottom lip and bumps our noses again. “Can we try again, Baz?”

“I don’t know, can we?” I snark.

He’s brings his lips close to mine when he repeats, “Can we try again, Baz?”

“We can.”

“May we?”

“Mais oui.”

“I hate French.”

“Me too.”

They only ever got kissing right.


End file.
